Making peace with "waiting"
Advent refers to the four weeks leading up to Christmas, waiting for Christ to come. For centuries, Advent has given Christians inspiration to gather, heal, and make peace with unresolved conflict.
Why should peacemakers care about Advent?
Advent is about waiting for Christmas, or waiting for Christ to arrive and transform us. It asks us to sit with the not yet feeling, and make peace with it. This can help us to be more at ease with the messy, yet-unresolved conflict in our lives. The Anglican priest Tish Harrison Warren described her own practice of Advent as:
Leaning into an almost cosmic ache: our deep, wordless desire for things to be made right and the incompleteness we find in the meantime. We dwell in a world still racked with conflict, violence, suffering, darkness. Advent holds space for our grief, and it reminds us that all of us, in one way or another, are not only wounded by the evil in the world but are also wielders of it, contributing our own moments of unkindness or impatience or selfishness.
Jason Kerr: Advent helps build bridges with other Christians
1. What is Advent? When and why did you become interested in celebrating it?
Advent is the season marked by the four Sundays before Christmas. Like Lent, it’s a penitential period to prepare spiritually for a significant celebration. I started becoming drawn to it about 15 years ago, thanks to other Latter-day Saints who celebrated it. I didn’t know much about it at the time, but I was interested in deepening my spiritual practice.
2. There are many seasons and holy days, like Advent and Lent, that are part of the broader Christian liturgical calendar but that Latter-day Saints tend not to emphasize. What have these added to your understanding of what it means to be a Christian?
I think the big thing is that being Christian means being part of a community that transcends denominational boundaries, at least to a degree. We may all be preparing for Christmas differently, but we’re still preparing together.
3. What practical guidance would you give to someone who wants to incorporate Advent into their Christmas season?
It’s not just about the Advent wreath and the candles. The penitential part is important, because that’s what cuts against the busyness of what we usually call the Christmas season. Christmas isn’t here yet, so I can ask God to show me the ways that my heart still needs to open so that there will be room for the Christ child.
4. Have you ever received pushback from other Christians for your desire to celebrate beside them?
Quite the opposite, in fact: I’ve always felt very welcome celebrating Advent with other Christians. If you’re new to more liturgical styles of worship, there will be some inevitable awkwardness at first, but the odds are extremely low that you’ll mess things up in some good way that hasn’t already been tried by a whole lot of Christians over the centuries.
About Jason:
Jason A. Kerr is Associate Professor of English at Brigham Young University. He is the author of Milton's Theological Process: Reading De Doctrina Christiana and Paradise Lost (Oxford, 2023), as well as numerous articles on the intersections of theology, religion, and politics in seventeenth-century British literature.
Advent: A How-to Guide
Celebrating Advent at home. BYU Professor Eric Huntsman wrote Good Tidings of Great Joy - An Advent Celebration of the Savior's Birth to help. Don’t want the book? Professor Huntsman was on the Faith Matters podcast and his blog has great resources. Wayfare also publishes beautiful Advent reflections.
Weekly Advent Devotionals. In 2022 and 2023, the ARCH-HIVE produced two detailed advent zines on how to celebrate Advent as a Latter-day Saint.
Advent as Peacebuilding Practice: Peace Catalyst International developed a two-week peacebuilding experience with seven practices for a more hopeful world and weekly peacebuilding calls to build connection. We also recommend their guide to community peacebuilding.
Resources from Other Traditions: An Advent Virtual Retreat from the Catholic Sisters of Mercy, an Advent Reflection Guide from the Catholic Maryknoll Sisters, United Methodist recommendations for how congregations can engage with their communities during Advent, and an interfaith advent calendar.
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