What is Advent

History

The word “Advent” is derived from the Latin word adventus, meaning “coming,” which is a translation of the Greek word parousia. Scholars believe that during the 4th and 5th centuries in Spain and Gaul, Advent was a season of preparation for the baptism of new Christians at the January feast of Epiphany, the celebration of God’s incarnation represented by the visit of the Magi to the baby Jesus (Matthew 2:1), his baptism in the Jordan River by John the Baptist (John 1:29), and his first miracle at Cana (John 2:1). During this season of preparation, Christians would spend 40 days in penance, prayer, and fasting to prepare for this celebration; originally, there was little connection between Advent and Christmas.

By the 6th century, however, Roman Christians had tied Advent to the coming of Christ. But the “coming” they had in mind was not Christ’s first coming in the manger in Bethlehem, but his second coming in the clouds as the judge of the world. It was not until the Middle Ages that the Advent season was explicitly linked to Christ’s first coming at Christmas.

Current Practice

Today, the Advent season lasts for four Sundays leading up to Christmas. At that time, the new Christian year begins with the twelve-day celebration of Christmastide, which lasts from Christmas Eve until Epiphany on January 6. (Advent begins on the Sunday that falls between November 27th and December 3rd each year.) 

Advent symbolizes the present situation of the church in these “last days” (Acts 2:17, Hebrews 1:2), as God’s people wait for the return of Christ in glory to consummate his eternal kingdom. The church is in a similar situation to Israel at the end of the Old Testament: in exile, waiting and hoping in prayerful expectation for the coming of the Messiah. Israel looked back to God’s past gracious actions on their behalf in leading them out of Egypt in the Exodus, and on this basis they called for God once again to act for them. In the same way, the church, during Advent, looks back upon Christ’s coming in celebration while at the same time looking forward in eager anticipation to the coming of Christ’s kingdom when he returns for his people. In this light, the Advent hymn “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” perfectly represents the church’s cry during the Advent season:

O come, O come, Emmanuel,

And ransom captive Israel,

That mourns in lonely exile here

Until the Son of God appears.

Rejoice! Rejoice!

Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

While Israel would have sung the song in expectation of Christ’s first coming, the church now sings the song in commemoration of that first coming and in expectation of the second coming in the future.

Advent Liturgy and Practice                                  

To balance the two elements of remembrance and anticipation, the first two Sundays in Advent (through December 16th) look forward to Christ’s second coming, and the last two Sundays (December 17th – 24th) look backward to remember Christ’s first coming. Over the course of the four weeks, Scripture readings move from passages about Christ’s return in judgment, to Old Testament passages about the expectation of the coming Messiah, to New Testament passages about the announcements of Christ’s arrival by John the Baptist and the Angels.

While it is difficult to keep in mind in the midst of holiday celebrations, shopping, lights and decorations, and joyful carols, Advent is intended to be a season of fasting, much like Lent, and there are a variety of ways that this time of mourning works itself out in the season. Reflection on the violence and evil in the world cause us to cry out to God to make things right—to put death’s dark shadows to flight. Our exile in the present makes us look forward to our future Exodus. And our own sinfulness and need for grace leads us to pray for the Holy Spirit to renew his work in conforming us into the image of Christ.

One catechism describes Advent spirituality beautifully: “When the Church celebrates the liturgy of Advent each year, she makes present this ancient expectancy of the Messiah, for by sharing in the long preparation for the Savior’s first coming, the faithful renew their ardent desire for his second coming. By celebrating the precursor’s birth and martyrdom, the Church unites herself to his desire: ‘He must increase, but I must decrease.’”

Advent and the Christian Life                                

While Advent is certainly a time of celebration and anticipation of Christ’s birth, it is more than that. It is only in the shadow of Advent that the miracle of Christmas can be fully understood and appreciated; and it is only in the light of Christmas that the Christian life makes any sense. It is between the fulfilled promise of Christ’s first coming and the  yet-to-be-fulfilled promise of his second coming that Karl Barth penned these words: “Unfulfilled and fulfilled promise are related to each other, as are dawn and sunrise. Both are promise and in fact the same promise. If anywhere at all, then it is precisely in the light of the coming of Christ that faith has become Advent faith, the expectation of future revelation. But faith knows for whom and for what it is waiting. It is fulfilled faith because it lays hold on the fulfilled promise.” The promise for Israel and the promise for the church is Jesus Christ; he has come, and he will come again. This is the essence of Advent.

Source: http://m.christianity.com/christian-life/christmas/what-is-advent.html

The Origin of Cyber Monday

For many, Cyber Monday provides the perfect shopping solution: all the holiday deals with none of the holiday crowds. But where did this term come from? The term Cyber Monday was first used in 2005 by Shop.org to encourage people to shop online; it refers to the Monday following Black Friday. Black Friday is, of course, the day after Thanksgiving and one of the busiest shopping days of the year.

Until the advent of the internet, cyber was used in the formation of words relating to computers, computer networks, or virtual reality. This usage can be traced to the word cybernetics, which was ushered into English in the 1940s by the scientist Norbert Wiener. Cybernetics refers to the study of mechanical and electronic systems designed to replace human systems. It comes from the Greek term kybernḗtēs meaning “helmsman” or “steersman.” The first instance on record of cyber as a combining form is from 1961 in the Wall Street Journal: “A major difference between the Cybertron and conventional computers…is the ability of the Cybertron to make use of raw data and signals.” In 1966 fans of the popular sci-fi show Doctor Who heard another cyber combining form: cybermen. These deathly cyborgs have popped up over 20 times throughout the show’s run.

In current usage, cyber is largely used in terms relating to the internet. One notable coinage in the evolution of this term is the word cyberspace by novelist William Gibson. He used it first in his 1982 story “Burning Chrome.” He used it again in his 1984 novel Neuromancer in a passage that many believe captures the sense of wonder that permeated the introduction of the internet to mainstream culture:

 ”Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts… A graphic representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding…”

Source: dictionary.com

The Origin of Black Friday

With Thanksgiving feasts come Black Friday sales. While many people believe the term Black Friday finds its roots in the sense of black meaning “showing a profit; not showing any losses,” this is not the case.

Historically, black has been associated with days of economic stress as opposed to days of booming commercial success. The first Black Friday occurred in 1869 after financier Jay Gould and railway businessman James Fisk attempted to corner the gold market, which ultimately resulted in financial panic and the collapse of the market. In turn, when the stock market crashed on October 29, 1929, marking the onset of the Great Depression, the event was referred to as Black Tuesday.

Following suit with the earlier “black” days, the true origin of the post-Thanksgiving Black Friday lies in the sense of black meaning “marked by disaster or misfortune.” In the 1950s, factory managers first started referring to the Friday after Thanksgiving as Black Friday because so many of their workers decided to falsely call in sick, thus extending the holiday weekend. About ten years later, Black Friday was used by Philadelphia traffic cops to describe the day after Thanksgiving, when they had to work 12-hour shifts in terrible traffic. Soon the term caught on among shoppers and merchants in Philadelphia, and from there it took off nationwide.

The 1980s brought the mythology of Black Friday so often heard today. While the phrases in the black and in the red are used in the business world to describe profits and losses, this explanation for one of the busiest shopping days of the year only came about in the 1980s, about 20 years after the phrase Black Friday was in regular use.

Source: dictionary.com

The Origin of December

The Origin of December

December is here: store fronts are festooned with holiday decorations, the cold is setting in, and another year is reaching its close. December has marked the end of the year and the beginning of winter since the ancient Romans established their first calendar. As its etymology indicates, December is formed from the Latin root decem- “ten,” however December is our twelfth month. The strange numbering discrepancy is also present for the months of September, October, and November, which mean “seven,” “eight,” and “nine,” even though they are our ninth, tenth, and eleventh months, respectively.

This is because the ancient Roman calendar had only ten months in the year, which began in March. Eventually January and February were added to the end of the year after December, though by the time the Julian calendar was established in 45 B.C., January and February appeared at the beginning of the year, bumping all of the original months back by two, and leaving the names as they were originally assigned.

Before December entered Old English, the terms for December were Ǣrra Gēola or Gēolmōnað, “yule month.” The early Germanic people celebrated the mid-wintery season during a time that was calledyuletide, a two-month period that spanned December and January. 

With the rise of Christianity, the yule was condensed and adopted into the liturgical year under the Christian name Christmastide, which begins on Christmas day and lasts a total of twelve days—the twelve days of Christmas. Our memory of the yule may be limited to yule logs, but every time Santa is described as “jolly,” you can take comfort in the fact that “jolly” may have derived from the same Old Norse root that brought us yule.

Even if we no longer call it the “yule month,” the association we have with December and the holidays has not diminished. What better way to keep up our spirits as we face another cold winter than the Winter Solstice, Hanukkah, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve?

Source: dictionary.com