It’s Advent (Note 1). A time of commemoration of Christ’s first coming and the anticipation of His second coming. In 2024, Advent starts on December 1st and runs through Christmas Eve December 24th.

Christians often speak of Christ’s “first advent” and “second advent”; that is, His first and second comings to earth. His first advent was the Incarnation – Christmastime. Our focus this Advent season is Christ’s second coming.

Our hope was birthed with the arrival of Jesus in Bethlehem two millennia ago. Our ultimate hope is in the second coming of Jesus Christ:

Watch, for the day of the Lord is coming soon! On that day the Lord will gather together the nations to fight Jerusalem; the city will be taken, the houses rifled, the loot divided. That day his feet will stand upon the Mount of Olives, to the east of Jerusalem, and the Mount of Olives will split apart, making a very wide valley running from east to west, for half the mountain will move toward the north and half toward the south. Zechariah 14:1, 4 TLB

Christmas shines a fresh light each year on the miracle of God incarnate and Jesus’s first coming. But Advent is not over. “What other time or season can or will the Church ever have but that of Advent!” Karl Barth (1886 – 1968)

Note 1: Taken from the Latin adventus, (coming, arrival, invasion), Advent proclaims the coming of Christ in two ways: it celebrates His long-awaited arrival as Messiah over 2,000 years ago, and it anticipates His imminent return as King of kings and Lord of lords.