Ben Witherington had an informative blog post regarding the start of Advent and the Christian new year. I was not aware of this, which might be due to my protestant, non-denominational upbringing, but apparently there is indeed a Christian new year. Much like there is a Chinese new year, and a secular new year, which we (yes, Christians) celebrate on January 1st.

The Christian new year is marked by the first day of Advent, that is, the fourth Sunday before Christmas. Now Advent is a holy season of preparation in expectation of the Nativity (Dec. 25th). It runs from the first Sunday to December 24th, Christmas Eve. Christmas Day follows, of course, and it is followed by the 12 Days of Christmas which run from the 26th to the Feast of Epiphany on January 6th. That’s right, the retailers have it backwards. The Twelve Days begin with Christmas, they don’t end on it.

The beginning of advent is traditionally meant to be a time focusing on the Second Coming of Christ. Actually the root adventus literally means “coming”. This is interesting to me. For centuries before us Christians began (and ended, the Sunday beginning the new year also ends the old one) the year with a period of reflection on the future coming of Christ. Then they commemorated the first coming (Nativity) on Christmas. It at first seemed chronologically backwards to my modern mind, but after some thinking it makes sense. Past Christians rang in the new year with teaching, preaching, reflection and exhortation regarding the triumphal return of Jesus. Both the end and start of their year was marked by a focused awareness of the future. We also do this (sort of) on January 1st, but with such a secularistic bent that it’s basically devoid of any meaning whatsoever. Only afterwards (in my mind) did they reflect back on the first coming of the God-man, not to diminish it, but to place it in the proper order. The incarnation/crucifixtion/resurrection was the singlemost important event, or series of events, in all of human existence (bar creation, possibly). The second coming is the most important event coming down the pike in the future.

I know that clarion calls to hark back to the “reason for the season” are numerous and often unnoticed; not much penetrates our post-modern density. But perhaps a semi-liturgical, ecclesiastic tradition of marking the Advent season wouldn’t be an all-bad thing for our post-Christian culture. It certainly couldn’t hurt.