Longing and Belonging

Advent and Christmas 2014 thematic concept

Many of us feel overwhelmed by Christmas because the longings it raises are frustrated by the reality. What might we learn from these longings about where we really belong?

Advent themes:
7th Dec, 9am & 7pm – GATHERING 
14th Dec, 9am & 7pm – CELEBRATING 
21st Dec, 9am – RESTING

Part 1: Longing

Advent is often swallowed by Christmas. Celebrations, Christmas parties for end-of-year work, family gatherings and the busy preparation for Christmas day (or summer travel) so easily squeeze out Advent from our lives, if not our calendars. Shops want to turn all of December (and as far back into November as they can) into a shopping spree, by bringing forward Christmas imagery and sounds until Advent becomes one long (exhausting) episode of consumption…

Yet in the Christian calandar, the celebration of Christmas does not start until 25^th December. If it is to be extended, then Christmastide (the twelve days of Christmas) takes us through to Epiphany. Advent is not a period of celebration, but of fasting, of preparation and expectation. It is more akin to Lent in tone, though with the focus on hope rather than repentance.

Advent’s place in the calendar reflects a deeper human and Christian need to wait, to have our desires deepened and healed, to develop the virtue of patience and to express the emotional reality of living in a world not yet redeemed, despite the promise and presence of a Redeemer.

In such a context, the twin themes of longing and belonging seem apt. Advent is a period of expectant longing, of looking ahead from the unfulfilled present into the promised and approaching future. This was the experience of Israel awaiting its promised Messiah and it is the experience of the church awaiting the consummation of the Messiah’s promises. This waiting can be a distinctly uncomfortable and discomfortable experience; as Jürgen Moltmann says: “the goal of the promised future stabs inexorably into the flesh of every unfulfilled present”. In hearing rumours of a Messiah, we long for a world made right, for restored relationships and a healing of communities, for shalom in and with creation.

Byron Smith, Assistant Minister