OPINION:
Advent is once again upon us. This is a time of year celebrated nearly universally by Christians. Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians and Pentecostals, who all recognize this season of the year as having great significance. The month between Thanksgiving and Christmas is the time of Advent. But, as with so many of our holidays — i.e., holy days — do we understand what the word Advent even means?
Advent finds its etymology in the Latin word “adventus,” which means “coming.” Thus, the Advent season is a four-week period celebrating the coming of Christ. It is a monthlong commemoration of Christmas past, present and future: past, in the birth of Jesus some 2,000 years ago; present, in that he is risen and lives even now as the Redeemer and our Lord; and future, in the promise that he will come again to judge the living and the dead and to restore all creation to its proper order.
Orthodox Christianity is built upon this indispensable primacy of Jesus Christ. We believe he is the second person of the Trinity, the Word made flesh and dwelling among us, the incarnation of the one true God. Jesus is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end; he is the one without whom nothing was made that was made. He is our Lord, our savior and our king, the Lion of Judah, and the Lamb of God.
Christ is the propitiation for our sins and the judge at the end of days. He is our great high priest, the chosen one, and the long-awaited Messiah. He is Emmanuel: God with us! Joy to the world, the Lord is come. Jesus has come, he is coming again, and the government shall be upon his shoulders, and of its increase and peace, there will be no end.
This is Advent. It is a Christian time of year. It is a time for us to remember that Christ, the son of God and son of man, the way, the truth and the life — has come, and he is coming again. This is the time to show our neighbors we truly believe.
We are the “light of the world,” and it needs us.
This is a time for us to boldly enter the town square and practice wisdom by “doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with our God” (Micah 6:8).
This is a time for us to “let our light so shine before men that they may see our good works and give praise to our Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).
This is a time for us to be ready to “give an answer” — a well-reasoned and sound defense — for our faith, our values and our way of life (1 Peter 3:15).
This is a time for us to acknowledge before our peers that the “Lord is God,” and he models “what is best” and “directs in the way [we] should go,” and the “fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10).
This is a time for us to teach our children, our grandchildren, and our neighbors’ children to “remember [their] Creator in the days of their youth” (Ecclesiastes 12:1).
This is a time to tell adults to “remember Him before the silver cord is broken” (Ecclesiastes 12:6).
This is a time for all of us to challenge our schools, colleges and universities that in “the making of many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body” and “everything is meaningless” unless we “fear God and keep his commandments for this is the whole duty of man” (Ecclesiastes 12:13).
This is the time for believers in Jesus to tell our elected officials that they need not be ashamed to “reclaim every inch of creation for Christ and His Kingdom” (Abraham Kuyper).
This is Advent. This is what makes Christianity salt to a dying culture and light to a dark world.
In the 1980s, Francis Schaeffer warned that “Christians have largely shut up their spirituality into a small corner of [culture] … instead of realizing that the Lordship of Christ is to permeate the whole spectrum of life. [We] have coasted along complacently, often serving up such dogmas as ’You can’t mix religion and politics,’ or ’You can’t legislate morality,’ when what [we] really meant was ’We just don’t want to be disturbed.’ [We are] content in [our] comfort zones.”
Christ has promised us that the gates of hell will not prevail against us. Advent is our time to remember he is coming again, and to start acting like it.
• Everett Piper (dreverettpiper.com, @dreverettpiper), a columnist for The Washington Times, is a former university president and radio host.
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