November 26: Sacred Time: the Mysteries of Advent
INTRODUCTION TO ADVENT
SACRED TIME: THE MYSTERIES OF ADVENT
Sacred time simply put is the intersection between time and eternity. We experience it at the key moments of life: the birth of a child, the marriage of a Christian couple, and at the deathbed of a loved one. Sacred time occurs when joining with our brothers and sisters in Christ, we worship and adore the Lord. When as a body of believers we partake of the bread and wine together, heaven and earth meet. Moments when we are aware of God’s presence in our lives and feel him speaking to us through his word are occasions that characterize sacred time. Theologian Eugene Peterson writes, “God is the larger context and plot in which our stories find themselves.”
The cyclical liturgical year, full as it is with remembrances and celebrations, not only marks time but sacralizes it for church communities as well as for private devotional use. These special times profoundly form and fashion our lives as we seek to grow in grace. Professor Patricia Wilson-Kastner writes, “Sacred time connects Christians as members of the Body of Christ, and draws the worshiping community into its broader union with Christ and with the world. Sacred time serves to focus Christians on the great feasts of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.”
Two Greek words, anamnesis and prolepsis, come into play here. Anamnesia refers to remembering or recalling the past while prolepsis considers events that have not actually occurred as if they have already taken place. One of the mysteries of Advent is that we remember the incarnation of Christ (the already) as we identify with those who were anticipating the coming Messiah, but at the very same time we look forward to his second appearance (the not-yet) when suffering will end and he will finally make all things new. How do we participate in this impossibility to fully understand the phenomenon? Again quoting Eugene Peterson, “The present moment more resembles eternity than any other, because in the present, the past and the future converge.”
We are most cognizant of the fact that God is eternal as we contrast his timelessness with the temporality of man, who never has enough time. During the following six weeks we will examine various, often overlapping, views of sacred time in light of the season of Advent: old time, redeeming time, the fullness of time, kairos time, creative time, and finally timelessness. In his book, Living The Christian Year: Time to Inhabit the Story of God, from which many of the above thoughts came, writer Bobby Gross writes, “By some mysterious grace, the light of the Christ who lived in history comes into our present experience with spiritual power, and the hope of the Christ who will return in glory to renew all things also brings power into our lives. Eternity intersects time.” As we journey together this Advent, seek those precious moments of sacred connection with the One “who was, and is, and is to come” (Revelation 1:18).
We warmly invite you to join us over the next six weeks as we delve into contemplation, prayer, and the spiritual truths found in each devotional entry.
We are most grateful for all of the illustrators, artisans, fine artists, poets, authors, composers, and musicians who have contributed their talents to this project. We have attempted to include a multiplicity of styles, diversity of cultures, and a wide range of denominations to create a rich tapestry of expression. Our team has spent dozens of hours culling through hundreds of musical compositions, works of art, and poetry in an attempt to bring a heartfelt meditative and worship experience to our subscribers.
Additionally, we encourage you to take advantage of the additional resource under the “About” tab located next to the “Devotional” tab, to give you biographical information on the artists, poets, composers, and musicians, as well as lyrics, song/composition titles, and artwork, used in this Project.
Finally, we are most grateful to those readers who have contributed financially to this wonderful endeavor. It is your continued support that makes these projects possible.
Thank you.
–– CCCA, 2022
Video Advent Messsage by Luke Aleckson:
What is it about ancient ruins that make us treasure them? We tend to discard broken things, to see their value as approaching zero as they crack and weather with age. But the value of a ruin increases in each passing era. Its fracturing is not a fault but a feature that keeps us returning, as pilgrims, to the grandeur of faded glory.
The philosopher Alain de Botton says that “It seems ... that the more advanced a society is, the greater will be its interest in ruined things, for it will see in them a redemptively sobering reminder of the fragility of its own achievements. Ruins pose a direct challenge to our concern with power and rank, with bustle and fame."
We are living in the most advanced society the world has ever known, and it would seem we can use ruins now more than ever. We can use them as a reminder of how short our time is, and how the fleeting things of this world that all too often pull our hearts and minds away from our true purpose: to slowly and faithfully store up treasures in Heaven, not to frantically fight against the passing of time.
In this year's Advent project, Time -- God's sacred time-- will be the subject. Just as with the ruins, his time is not ours. "With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day," as the Apostle Peter explains. We will aim to lift our hearts out of the "tyranny of the present." Our impatience, our worries, the frantic pace of our lives, all fade when we leave our times and enter his.
Our hope is that these daily devotionals will help you do exactly this. We are broken, but unlike this temple in front of me, we are not ruins that are destined to fade back into the earth. Instead, as the book of Galatians celebrates, "when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son." And because of that, in God's perfect timing, we will be restored. In Advent we wait: not in anxiousness, but in joyful anticipation. Thank you for joining us.