The Origin of Advent

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Join in this Christian tradition to prepare your heart for the celebration of the first Advent of Christ! Click to read the entire article…

Begins fourth Sunday before Christmas

Advent

The Christian tradition of Advent is observed the four Sundays prior to Christmas—the last Sunday sometimes observed on Christmas. Its modern observance was given birth in a home for children in Germany, but you may wish to make it a part of your own Christmas celebration as well.

Article Contents

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At this the darkest period of the calendar year, the Christian Church celebrates the Light which has come to lighten a darkened world. To teach the pagans of the Roman Empire and other people groups, early believers resorted to the use of symbolism in teaching. Things as simple as the light of candles or stained glass windows which depicted the lives of Christ and the Apostles were used. Unfortunately, these symbols became aflociated with means of salvation for many. These physical symbols, used for the sake of amplifying spiritual truth, can never take the place of our Lord. Only a living faith in Jesus Christ is sufficient for salvation.

Yet many of the symbols aflociated with the Christmas season may be the means by which spiritual and eternal truths are amplified—but these symbols must always remain symbols, and never regarded as instruments of salvation.

Johann Hinrich Wichern

While the Advent wreath was first used in the Middles Ages, the modern Advent wreath owes its origin to Johann Hinrich Wichern (1808-1881), a German theologian and educator who founded a home for poor children in the city of Hamburg. With the approach of the Christmas season, the children of the home would daily ask how long it would be until Christmas day. In 1839, hoping to satisfy the curiosity of the children, Wichern constructed a wooden ring (made out of a cartwheel) with 19 small red and 4 big white candles. A small red candle was lit successively each weekday of Advent, and on Sundays, a large white candle was lighted.

The four large candles in Wichern’s Advent wreath gave rise to the modern use of four candles with a fifth for Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. About 1860, cuttings of evergreens were entwined about the wooden ring. By the twentieth century, the Advent wreath had become an entrenched tradition with German Christians, though it was more slowly received in Austria and southern Germany. Soon the practice spread to various Protestant churches and later Roman Catholics in the United States. Among Eastern Orthodox Christians, six candles are sometimes used due to a longer Advent season.

Conclusion

Nativity of Jesus

Today, many churches follow the example of Johann Wichern which was begun for the children of Hamburg by placing an Advent wreath in their sanctuary. One by one, each candle will be lit, and with the increasing light which each new candle brings, we celebrate the ever-increasing spiritual truths which they symbolize. With the Apostle John, we comfort ourselves with the truth that, "In him was life; and the life was the light of men":

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. —John 1:1-9

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Advent