The four themes of Advent
There are four themes corresponding to each week of Advent, beginning with the Sundays.
Hope doesn’t come from nowhere. The hope of God’s people in the Bible comes from the fact that God made them specific promises: of peace, of an eternal kingdom to be established by the Messiah, of a creation finally healed and at rest. So the readings for this week focus especially on God’s promises. Becoming acquainted with these promises is a good first step in coming to a deeper knowledge of who God is.
Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths’ (Luke 3:4). As we dwell on these words of St John the Baptist, our sense of anticipation begins to ramp up in the second week of Advent. The promises of God continue, and there’s a greater focus of one promise in particular: ‘he is coming to save you’ (Isaiah 35:4). The message this week is clear: get ready to be saved.
Joy : When promises are fulfilled, when a long-awaited hope has been met, there is only one reasonable response: joy. When the Magi from the East saw the star above the place where Jesus was, Matthew says, ‘they rejoiced with very great joy’ before prostrating themselves in worship (2:10). The shepherds likewise ‘went back glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, just as they had been told’ (Luke 2:20). The third week of Advent is an opportunity to experience the ‘very great joy’ of knowing Jesus.
Love : Finally, we come to the ultimate theme of Advent, the one that makes sense of everything else: love. The readings for this week focus on how the birth of Jesus through Mary is one of the deepest revelations of God’s love. One of the antiphons in the leadup to Christmas reads: ‘O Root of Jesse’s stem, sign of God’s love for all his people: come to save us without delay!’ The coming of Jesus to live among us and to share our humanity confirms this truth: God really does love us.
