2010 Advent Devotions

This year’s Advent Devotional is inspired by many of the hymns, carols and songs of Advent and Christmas. Instead of taking a rigid and specific approach to the terms “hymns, carols and songs,” we are using them in a more general sense. In a more specific sense, one might consider a hymn as a non-scriptural song of praise addressed to God. Carols were originally dancing songs with a refrain, and the term came from the French word carole, a round dance. Carols were not originally limited to Christmas nor were they allowed inside churches. We’re using the term song in a very broad sense..

The Worship Sourcebook (pp. 421-22) tells us more of the distinction between Advent and our general secular sense of the four weeks before Christmas:

The great proclamation “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (John 1:14) assures us that God has entered into human history through the incarnation of the Son. The season of Advent, a season of waiting, is designed to cultivate our awareness of God’s action – past, present, and future. In Advent we hear the prophecies of the Messiah’s coming as addressed to us – people who wait for the second coming. In Advent we heighten our anticipation for the ultimate fulfillment of all Old Testament promises, when the wolf will lie down with the lamb, death will be swallowed up, and every tear will be wiped away. In this way Advent highlights for us the larger story of God’s redemptive plan.

A deliberate tension must be built into our practice of the Advent season. Christ has come, and yet not all things have reached completion. While we remember Israel’s waiting and hoping and we give thanks for Christ’s birth, we also anticipate his second coming at the end of time. For this reason Advent began as a penitential season, a time for discipline and intentional repentance in the confident expectation and hope of Christ’ coming again.

The Advent season includes the four Sundays preceding Christmas. Worship on these four Sundays should be designed to help people see the tension between celebrating and hoping.

We hope you will find these devotions based on hymns, carols and songs of Advent and Christmas helpful as you explore the creative tension between Christ’s coming 2000 years ago and our anticipation of his second coming.

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