We just entered the season of Advent. The essential meaning of the season may be encapsulated by the terms anticipation or waiting. We anticipate the coming of the Messiah, the Lord, the return of the King. The term “advent” means “coming” and involves four weeks of preparation. We await two comings of Christ: (1) His Second Coming when he will judge the living and the dead at the end of time, (2) and we relive the period before Christ coming in the flesh in Bethlehem 2000 years ago. Before Christ the world was in darkness, enslaved to the forces of sin and death.
The color of the season is violet like the season of Lent, albeit the purple of Advent is darker and has more of a blueish hue to it. St. John the Baptist gives us a reason for the color purple when he quotes Isaiah: “A voice of one crying out in the desert: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.’” Our paths are prepared and made straight by acts of repentance and conversion. Hence, similar to Lent, the season of Advent is meant to be a season of repentance and conversion to prepare for the coming of the Lord.
Meanwhile, the Advent wreath helps us to symbolically experience the darkness of the world without Christ. As we light the individual candle with each passing Sunday the darkness retreats because the light of the world is coming.
If we live this season of Advent as a period of preparatory anticipation, then we will have the best Christmas.
