Lynne Baab

Praying about the flow of time: Advent can be confusing

Lynne Baab • Tuesday November 26 2024

My congregation focuses on one word for each Sunday of Advent: hope, joy, peace, and love. When we light the Advent wreath in church every Sunday, each candle represents one of those words. In Advent, we prepare for Jesus’s first and second coming. To me, those four words — hope, joy, peace, and love — seem to relate more to Jesus’s arrival than preparation for his coming. I find this confusing.

Advent has traditionally been viewed as a penitential season. “Penitential” means focused on sorrow for having done wrong. Penitence moves us to confess our sins and receive forgiveness, and penitence helps us see why we need Jesus. I struggle to think clearly about all the connections between Jesus’s first and second coming, sorrow for sin, as well as hope, joy, peace, and love.

Too many themes are swirling around in this season!

I love the way hymns often express complex ideas simply and clearly. Charles Wesley (1707-1788) was a leader of the Methodist movement and one of the greatest hymn writers of all time. In one of his 6500 (!) hymns, he connects some of these themes:

Come, thou long expected Jesus,
born to set thy people free;
from our fears and sins release us,
let us find our rest in thee. . . .

Born thy people to deliver,
born a child and yet a King,
born to reign in us forever,
now thy gracious kingdom bring.

When we go to church in December, various scripture readings, sermons, prayers, and songs address these big, overlapping themes. But we seldom have time to think about them during the week because most of us experience extra pressures during December. These pressures include school events, holiday parties, shopping for gifts, decorating the house, and anticipating or dreading seeing the extended family at Christmas. Or mourning that we’re not going to see them.

I find it ironic that in the church season with the most complex themes, we are too busy to contemplate these deep and beautiful ideas. It feels like too many themes and tasks and pressures and activities for four weeks to hold.

As we begin Advent on December 1, I want to recommend two spiritual practices. I absolutely don’t want to add anything to the pressures that so many of us feel in December. I am convinced, though, that we can find and delight in God’s companionship in Advent.

First, ponder with me for a moment the overlap of mindfulness and thankfulness prayers. Mindfulness encourages us to be present to the gifts of this very moment, noticing what we are sensing, thinking, and feeling. December often feels too busy to pause and notice anything. That’s where the overlap with thankfulness helps. In the midst of holiday bustle, brief moments burst upon us with joy, clarity, and wonder. I want to recommend pausing even for two seconds to relish those moments. Then turn to God with a big — maybe very brief — smile.

Maybe one of those moments will relate to longing for Jesus’s second coming or sadness for the sin that had to bring Jesus to earth the first time. Maybe one of those moments will come from hearing the words hope, joy, peace, and love. We can enjoy those moments and thank God for them without having to summon up the entire Advent message. This combination of mindfulness and thankfulness will help us enjoy Advent in snippets and moments while trying to be faithful to all the responsibilities, tasks, and events.

I also recommend the main idea of the practice of simplicity. In her wonderful Spiritual Disciplines Handbook, Adele Ahlberg Calhoun writes that our desire in embracing simplicity is “to uncomplicate and untangle my life so I can focus on what really matters.” In Advent, uncomplicating and untangling our lives seems almost impossible. But we can take a moment now, as the season is about to begin, to identify what really matters to us in the Advent and Christmas season. Keeping that in mind during December will help us say no at the right times, notice the moments that really matter, and thank God for them.

Come, thou long expected Jesus, born to set thy people free; from our fears and sins release us, let us find our rest in thee.

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If you’re stumped about a few Christmas gifts, I want to recommend my three most recent books plus my most popular book. The first two contain dozens of beautiful watercolor illustrations by my talented husband, Dave. For those of you outside the United States, look for these books at the branch of Amazon closest to you so you will pay less postage.

• Friendship, Listening, and Empathy: A Prayer Guide
• Draw Near: A Lenten Devotional
• Two Hands: Grief and Gratitude in the Christian Life
• Sabbath Keeping: Finding Freedom in the Rhythms of Rest, my most popular book, available in paperback, for Kindle and as an audiobook

Next week: Why did Jesus need to come? Illustration by Dave Baab.

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Lynne M. Baab, Ph.D., is an author and adjunct professor. She has written numerous books, Bible study guides, and articles for magazines and journals. Lynne is passionate about prayer and other ways to draw near to God, and her writing conveys encouragement for readers to be their authentic selves before God. She encourages experimentation and lightness in Christians spiritual practices. Read more »

Lynne is pleased to announce the release of her two 2024 books, both of them illustrated with her talented husband Dave's watercolors. She is thrilled at how good the watercolors look in the printed books, and in the kindle versions, if read on a phone, the watercolors glow. Friendship, Listening and Empathy: A Prayer Guide guides the reader into new ways to pray about the topics in the title. Draw Near: A Lenten Devotional guides the reader to a psalm for each day of Lent and offers insightful reflection/discussion questions that can be used alone or in groups. 

Another recent book is Two Hands: Grief and Gratitude in the Christian  Life, available in paperback, audiobook, and for kindle. Lynne's 2018 book is Nurturing Hope: Christian Pastoral Care for the Twenty-First Century, and her most popular book is Sabbath-Keeping: Finding Freedom in the Rhythms of Rest (now available as an audiobook as well as paperback and kindle). You can see her many other book titles here, along with her Bible study guides.

You can listen to Lynne talk about these topics: empathy, bringing spiritual practices to life. Sabbath keeping for recent grads., and Sabbath keeping for families and children.

Lynne was interviewed for the podcast "As the Crow Flies". The first episode focuses on why listening matters and the second one on listening skills. 

Here are two talks Lynne gave on listening (recorded in audio form on YouTube): Listening for Mission and Ministry and Why Listening Matters for Mission and Ministry.

"Lynne's writing is beautiful. Her tone has such a note of hope and excitement about growth. It is gentle and affirming."
— a reader

"Dear Dr. Baab, You changed my life. It is only through God’s gift of the sabbath that I feel in my heart and soul that God loves me apart from anything I do."
— a reader of Sabbath Keeping