ADVENT is a season of waiting; it is a season of preparation for the coming of Jesus Christ. People of long ago waited for the first coming of the Savior, and their waiting ended with the birth of Jesus on the first Christmas day. After the earthly life of Jesus, his death, resurrection and ascension back to heaven, Christians started waiting once again – this time for the second coming of Christ as Judge and King at the end of time.
Thus, during this Advent season, we prepare for Christmas to remember and celebrate how God, in His great love for the world, has fulfilled his promise of sending his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16). We commemorate those precious moments when the Angel Gabriel announced to the Virgin Mary her conception of the child Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit, Mary’s “yes” to the will of God, and climaxing with the nativity of the Lord in the town of Bethlehem, with the company of angels singing, “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests” (Luke 2:14).
Similarly, we also prepare to meet our Creator, either when he comes again or at the hour of our death. We believe that Christ will come again because the Bible, in many references like in what follows, says so. He will return in the same way as the disciples saw him raised to heaven (Acts 1:11). He, the Son of Man, will come upon the clouds of heaven with power and great glory and he will send out his angels to gather his elect from the four winds (Matthew 24:30-31). With the voice of an archangel and with the trumpet of God, he will come down from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first, followed by those who are alive – caught together in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and be always with him forever (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17). We must therefore be prepared, for at an hour we do not expect, he will come (Matthew 24:44). He is coming soon, bringing with him the recompense to each one according to his deeds (Revelation 22:12).
Whether in commemoration of his first coming or in anticipation of his second coming, we must prepare with a clean heart – repenting for our sins, asking for forgiveness, and consistent with the themes of some of the Advent gospels, following John the Baptist’s exhortation to show our sincere repentance by replacing our acts of evil with acts of righteousness.
Our preparation lies less on the external than on the internal. Christmas decorations, holiday shopping, exchange of gifts, Christmas carols, aguinaldos, the sumptuous noche buena meal, and many other traditions may be important, but only if they lead us to the real essence of the season, and that is Jesus Christ himself. Without Christ, the best of man’s preparations will be meaningless, but with Christ, we will have what matters most ? in fact, the only one who really matters.