Happy New Year!

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1).

Happy New Year!

Before you start emailing me or commenting below, yes I do know that today (the date I'm posting) is November 29. We're slightly over a month out from the ball dropping in Times Square. I haven't forgotten about Christmas or all the parties that the next month holds. But this weekend is, for the church calendar, New Year's. The First Sunday of Advent, which is this coming Sunday, is the beginning of the Christian Year. So, Happy New Year!

Why does the church start the "year" before the world does? Do we just like to be different? Well, yes, but that's not the reason. Advent begins the Christian Year because it celebrates the beginning of our hope, our salvation, our new birth. Advent is a time of preparation, of getting ready for the birth of Jesus. So this season is the beginning, because the event we're anticipating is the only hope for any new beginning.

But Advent has an additional focus as well. I started to write "a second focus," but that makes it sound like these two foci are not equal. They are, though this one often gets subordinated to the manger and the carols and the fa la la. Advent is not only meant to prepare us for the celebration of Jesus' first coming, but also to prepare us for his second coming, his return, his triumph over the powers of evil and darkness. Advent is meant to help us live into the declaration that one day, John 1:5 will be fully true: "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."

In the midst of the darkest time of the year, Advent arrives and proclaims light, hope, salvation! It is a time of new beginnings and new life in the midst of the (in the northern hemisphere, anyway) deadest time of the year. So, Happy New Year! Happy New Life! Happy Advent!