The Turning of the Year

The Advent season is considered the beginning of the Church’s year. It starts four Sundays before Christmas and ends on Christmas Day. In the United States, this means that it nearly always starts on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. As a result, Advent sometimes gets lost in the decorating, the shopping, the parties and the planning for the holiday season.

But today we would like to invite you to consider what these weeks mean for our celebration of the birth of Jesus the Savior. The word advent means “coming”, and what the Church observes during this time is preparation and joyful waiting for the coming of Christ. Many congregations and families use an Advent wreath with candles on it to think about a theme for each week of Advent and to help them get their minds and hearts ready for the celebration of Christ’s first coming.

Christmas Day is not the only day we wait and prepare for as Christians. We also wait for the time when our Lord will come again in triumph and victory. The Bible says that the dead will rise and God will unveil a new Heaven and a new Earth. We don’t know when or how this will happen, but we look forward to this time with anticipation and hold close our faith in our loving God’s mercy and care for all His creation.

To celebrate this special time of Advent, we would like to share with you a brief series of short stories about the prelude to the coming of Christ as it may have appeared to the people of that era. Drawn from the Gospels of Luke and Matthew, this collection blends scriptural themes with creative perspective to cast fresh light on familiar events by offering a glimpse into what the characters themselves may have thought about what was happening to them.

These stories will be published weekly throughout the month of December.