Advent calendars: They dole Christmas out glimpse by glimpse. They build up the picture or the story in slow, random-seeming increments they don’t go all the way in one shot. They require pauses. They require little bursts of delight. They require patience.
Advent is about expecting the coming of Christmas, the remembrance of Jesus’ first coming. But it’s also about expecting Jesus’ second coming, the one that he said would straighten up the world, delight the good, open the eyes of the bad and fix everything. It’s about sinking not only into the longing and trepidation of that promise but also into trust that it will be fulfilled.
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