If you’ve been in worship at Celebration recently, or watched online, you may have heard some teaser announcements about plans for an early and extended Advent season. It’s true! We’re trying something “new” that’s actually very old: seven weeks of Advent!
We are joining with a number of congregations around the country that have been reviving this practice of the very early church. For the first few hundred years that Advent was observed as a liturgical season, it was 6-7 weeks long. Sometime around 1000 CE, the Church settled on a 4-week season – although the Eastern Orthodox church has always observed the extended Advent. If you want to know more about this liturgical practice and history, visit The Advent Project. You can also read What Are We Waiting For? Reimagining Advent for Time to Come, by William Petersen.
Why revive this tradition now?
We as Church understand Advent as a season of waiting, reflection, preparation, and hope for the manifestation of the Reign of God. We remember Christ’s first coming, and await his second coming. Ideally, we would spend much of the time in prayer, worship, and service.
But we don’t give ourselves that kind of time. Or we try to, but what Petersen calls “the Christmas Culture” drives us to distraction. In the United States, we have a long history of rushing Christmas. “Shopping Days” countdowns start popping up in store circulars and social media in September. Christmas music and decorations and sales incentives start right after Halloween, if not before.
The “reason for the season” is utterly lost in parties and lights and pressure to spend more and more on extravagant gifts (with winking reminders to treat ourselves as well as our loved ones!). The Church does its best to squeeze in four penitential weeks of Advent, but capitalism has a two-month head start on our attention! It is our hope that this 7-week Advent helps us – individually and as a community – carve out the time and attention to prepare the way for the Lord’s coming.
What will the season look like?
The season is designed to follow the regular scripture readings assigned for each week in the Revised Common Lectionary, but we will view these through an Advent lens shaped by the words we know as the O Antiphons, the short prayers that address Christ by each of his biblical titles (you will recognize these as the verses of “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”); we make one change in order of verses, to align with Christ the King Sunday:
Advent I (Nov 9) – O Sapientia – Wisdom
Advent II (Nov 16) – O Adonai – Lord
Advent III (Nov 23) – O Rex gentium – Ruler of Nations
Advent IV (Nov 30) – O radix Jesse – Root of Jesse
Advent V (Dec 7) – O clavis David – Key of David
Advent VI (Dec 14) – O Oriens – Morning Star
Advent VII (Dec 21) – O Emmanuel – God with us
We changed our sanctuary colors last week, for our first official Sunday in extended Advent. We also moved into setting 12 from All Creation Sings. We’ve used that a few times in the last four years, and you will begin to recognize it.
If you are able, please plan to stay after worship on November 30 to help “green” the sanctuary!
We will invite worshippers to offer petitions during our intercessory prayer time. We will also invite worshippers to take a tree ornament tag with their bulletin each Sunday, and inscribe it with a prayer petition. We’ll collect these with the offering each week, and add them to the “prayer tree.”
Do save the evening of Sunday, December 21, for our annual, ecumenical Longest Night worship service and fellowship time, beginning at 7 p.m.
Christmas Eve worship will be at 7 p.m., Wednesday, December 24. We will not hold Christmas Day worship at Celebration, but will provide the times and locations of area Christmas Day services.
Lastly, we’ll have some Advent devotionals printed for you and your families to use, one for our 7-week schedule, and one for a traditional four-week schedule. Look for these on the oak table or in the e-news.
We pray that this season will be a nourishing time of prayer and preparation for you!
