Rev Dr Ezamo Murry,
Model Village, 5th Mile,
Saying ‘Advent Christmas’ is akin to saying ‘Lent Easter’. Both the expressions are wrong because both Advent and Lent refer to seasons during which a climax comes on a day culminating that season. Advent (Meaning ‘Coming’ or, the coming of Jesus to the world) is spoken of two advents, first, the coming of Jesus (God Incarnate) to the world culminated on the Christmas day. To understand this act of God’s love the church meditates for over three weeks beginning from the first Sunday of December and culminating on the 25th December, the Christmas day. There are other church traditions that celebrate Christmas on the 6th of January. Some other traditions celebrate Christmas for 12 days as we often sing the carol “The Twelve Day Christmas” (December 25 to January 6th?). We in Nagaland are in Church traditions that celebrate Christmas on the 25th of December. This three weeks period of meditations on who Christ is, what he came to the world to do and, what God in Christ expects us to respond to this gesture of love is a season of worship and praise transforming ourselves in faith to God’s purpose. This in brief is the so called the ‘First Advent of Christ’.
The Second Advent of Christ refers to the event of Christ’s Second coming which we all await. Almost all the gospel songs have the last stanza of the song anticipating the Second coming at which event our hopes and purpose of Christian living will be fully realized. Henry Barraclough in his song Ivory Palaces (A Christmas song rarely used for the occasion) has the last stanza depicting this Second Advent when Henry, at the direction of the famous preacher, J.Wilbur Chapman, added: In garments glorious He will come, to open wide the door; and I shall enter my heavenly home, To dwell for ever more. Having listened to the message that night the young pianist Henry Barraclough had written the first three stanzas depicting the first advent of Christ, beginning, My Lord has garments so wondrous fine…That evening the evangelist had used Psalm 45:8 as his text. He said that the Christ who came to the world this first advent with garments filled with myrrh, aloes and cassia will come again with the same bridal garments which textures was dipped in the best of the oriental perfumes. Christ the bridegroom of the Church will come again with such perfumed-dipped garments to meet His bride, the Church. Touched by the odor or even actual touching of His garments will mean healing from sickness and sin. For that purpose Christ came to the world (Mt.1:21).
In secular history we speak about Gregorian or Julian calendar where a year consists of twelve months. The Church does have a calendar (Church calendar or Church Year) meant mostly for the preachers of the Word for the purpose of feeding the congregation with a balanced diet of the Word of God. The Church calendar is not for counting months of the year but for leading the congregation with the meditations and worship following the relevant texts of the Bible. The Church calendar consists mainly of two major events: Christmas and Easter of which we have highlighted the meaning of the First Advent and that the Second Advent is awaited.
The other important season of the Church calendar is the Lent, or Lenthen season. Lent ( fortieth,long) is a season in the Church calendar covering 40 days beginning from the Ash Wednesday ( This year 14th, February 2024) every year in penance and with prayers and fasting and ending at the Resurrection Day (Easter Sunday). This season of the Church calendar commemorates the fasting of Jesus for forty days in the wilderness. Before culminating at Easter the Lent season takes the believers through a time of remembering the suffering and death of Jesus Christ before he was raised from the death and glorified as the King of kings and Lord of lords (Rev.19:16).
I am incited by the recent floods of captions and expressions in the social media including the Hornbill festival counters by the label ‘Advent Christmas’ to remind ourselves with the right usage of the terminologies of the Church Calendar. Visitors from far and near must have seen and photographed those labels in the dailies and the counters to take home as discovery from our land. Perhaps we mean ‘Advance Celebration of Christmas’ when we say ‘Advent Christmas’ wrongly. For that matter we need not say ‘Lent Easter’ either. It is the Lent season of over 40 days that culminates on the Easter.
