From the "Gracevine" Newsletter Article for Grace Lutheran Church in Thornville, Ohio, December 2022
Prepare the Royal Highway; The King of Kings Is Near!
Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he… - Zechariah 9:9 ESV
I look forward to the season of Advent every year. This whole “holiday season,” but especially these four Sundays that precede Christmas are a special time. As much as I love Christmas hymns, I also love the Advent hymn tradition in Lutheran churches. A special feeling comes over me when I hear the Swedish Lutheran hymn quoted above: “Prepare the royal highway; the King of kings is near!” That hymn is only one among the many treasures of Advent.
In the history of the Western Christian Church, which eventually produced the Roman Catholic, Lutheran, and other Protestant traditions, the season of Advent was actually the last of the seasons of the church calendar to be established, perhaps in the 800s A.D. In our time, we take the season of Advent for granted, but we should be aware that different groups of Christians in our history have attached different significance to these four Sundays leading up to Christmas.
I didn’t think much about Advent until I lived in Germany for a year in 2004 and 2005. In my Lutheran church growing up, as well as in my college and seminary years, the season of Advent was often spoken of as a gloomy time of “preparation” for Christmas. The thought was that to appreciate Christmas in the right way, we needed to engage in spiritual practices of “waiting” and “anticipation.” As a Lutheran, there was always something about this human-centered focus that didn’t sit well with me. But for the longest time I just accepted it.
When Advent began in December of 2004 during my sojourn in Germany, things began to make more sense after an initial shock. That first Sunday of Advent was filled with joyful sounds and joyful hymns. People greeted each other on the street with “Happy first of Advent!” The tune of a familiar Easter hymn for us (“Thine Is the Glory”) is the tune used for a popular Advent hymn based on the verse from Zechariah 9 I shared above: Tochter Zion, freue dich! (“Daughter of Zion, rejoice!”). I remember on that day hearing a brass choir play that tune from the church tower in Leipzig. It definitely raised my eyebrows! But the biggest difference I noticed was in the readings from the Bible in worship. That Sunday, the pastor read and preached about Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, the same reading used for Palm Sunday. This was not at all what I expected, and my experience in church that morning was like being in a different universe than my American Advent experience. I began to explore the history behind Advent, and what I discovered was strangely liberating for me.
From around the time of the Emperor Charlemagne in the eighth century A.D., Western Christians began using a one-year lectionary (cycle of Bible readings) for Sundays. For Advent, the first Sunday was about Jesus riding into Jerusalem. The second Sunday was about Jesus’ second coming in the future. The third and fourth Sundays were about the preaching of John the Baptist/Baptizer. Even in the time of the Lutheran Reformation, Lutheran preachers kept using this one-year lectionary, while emphasizing different things about these readings than their Roman Catholic counterparts. This tradition remained among American Lutherans until the 1960s.
When the Roman Catholic Church began its internal reforms with the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, many things began to change, and many Protestants, including Lutherans, adopted aspects of this reform as a way of promoting greater Christian unity. One of these things was the move away from a one-year lectionary and the adoption of a three-year lectionary. This three-year lectionary commonly used in our churches (in slightly different forms) did away with the older tradition of Advent, and it has, in my opinion at least, contributed to a move toward Advent as a gloomy and penitential season rather than a joyful one.
What I learned from my German experience and subsequent research is that among Lutherans, the season of Advent was meant as a time of joy and hope in the promise of God in Jesus Christ. But over the last 50 or so years as Lutherans have used the three-year lectionary, the distinctive way that Lutherans looked at the season of Advent has been lost. Instead of a joyful time of proclamation of God’s promises, Advent has become a time of almost gloomy contemplation, with congregations each week of the season singing dirge-like renditions of “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,” as though Christ has not yet come and as if that coming were in question. (That hymn, for the record, can be powerful if understood and used in the right way).
There is room in our Lutheran churches for some freedom in practice, but I want to work toward reclaiming a Lutheran focus of Advent this season. The word “Advent” simply means “arrival” in Latin. To make a long story short, Lutheran preachers used the various Bible readings on the Sundays in Advent to highlight the three different ways that Jesus Christ arrives in our world:
The first Sunday, the gospel reading was the triumphal entry (same as Palm Sunday), where Jesus arrives in Jerusalem for the last week of his life by riding on a colt. Lutheran preachers focused on how Jesus Christ arrived in Jerusalem to give his life, and this gave them opportunity to preach about how the Son of God arrives for us in the flesh, the incarnation, the first arrival, the first coming into our world.
The second Sunday, the gospel reading focused on Jesus Christ’s promised coming in the future, his future arrival. As we confess in our creeds on Sunday morning, Lutheran preachers proclaimed that Christ will “come again to judge the living and the dead.” For believers in Christ, this is a comforting message of promise, not something to fear.
The third and fourth Sundays focused on John the Baptist/Baptizer. John the Baptist went before Jesus to proclaim him as “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Lutheran preachers focused on how John preached correctly. He was viewed as the prototypical Lutheran preacher, as he pointed to Christ as the good news. And because of this, Lutheran preachers focused on these Sundays on how Jesus Christ arrives in our world today as his message is preached.
Three different “advents.” This season is a joyful time of receiving the good news of Jesus Christ. It is not meant to be a gloomy time of contemplation or anticipation. The Scripture readings we will use this Advent season are my own modification of the three-year lectionary, meant to restore the older themes of Advent. And while I would not want to turn each Sunday of Advent into a Christmas hymn sing, if there are certain Christmas hymns that can assist us in hearing about these different “advents” in the weeks before Christmas, I say we have the freedom to sing them joyfully! I do not want to overshadow Advent hymns, but if we do not sing any Christmas hymns in the weeks before Christmas, then people have little opportunity to enjoy those treasures.
Let’s reclaim Lutheran Advent and receive the good news of Jesus Christ this season!
Pr. Tom Jacobson
Prepare the Royal Highway; The King of Kings Is Near!
Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he… - Zechariah 9:9 ESV
I look forward to the season of Advent every year. This whole “holiday season,” but especially these four Sundays that precede Christmas are a special time. As much as I love Christmas hymns, I also love the Advent hymn tradition in Lutheran churches. A special feeling comes over me when I hear the Swedish Lutheran hymn quoted above: “Prepare the royal highway; the King of kings is near!” That hymn is only one among the many treasures of Advent.
In the history of the Western Christian Church, which eventually produced the Roman Catholic, Lutheran, and other Protestant traditions, the season of Advent was actually the last of the seasons of the church calendar to be established, perhaps in the 800s A.D. In our time, we take the season of Advent for granted, but we should be aware that different groups of Christians in our history have attached different significance to these four Sundays leading up to Christmas.
I didn’t think much about Advent until I lived in Germany for a year in 2004 and 2005. In my Lutheran church growing up, as well as in my college and seminary years, the season of Advent was often spoken of as a gloomy time of “preparation” for Christmas. The thought was that to appreciate Christmas in the right way, we needed to engage in spiritual practices of “waiting” and “anticipation.” As a Lutheran, there was always something about this human-centered focus that didn’t sit well with me. But for the longest time I just accepted it.
When Advent began in December of 2004 during my sojourn in Germany, things began to make more sense after an initial shock. That first Sunday of Advent was filled with joyful sounds and joyful hymns. People greeted each other on the street with “Happy first of Advent!” The tune of a familiar Easter hymn for us (“Thine Is the Glory”) is the tune used for a popular Advent hymn based on the verse from Zechariah 9 I shared above: Tochter Zion, freue dich! (“Daughter of Zion, rejoice!”). I remember on that day hearing a brass choir play that tune from the church tower in Leipzig. It definitely raised my eyebrows! But the biggest difference I noticed was in the readings from the Bible in worship. That Sunday, the pastor read and preached about Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, the same reading used for Palm Sunday. This was not at all what I expected, and my experience in church that morning was like being in a different universe than my American Advent experience. I began to explore the history behind Advent, and what I discovered was strangely liberating for me.
From around the time of the Emperor Charlemagne in the eighth century A.D., Western Christians began using a one-year lectionary (cycle of Bible readings) for Sundays. For Advent, the first Sunday was about Jesus riding into Jerusalem. The second Sunday was about Jesus’ second coming in the future. The third and fourth Sundays were about the preaching of John the Baptist/Baptizer. Even in the time of the Lutheran Reformation, Lutheran preachers kept using this one-year lectionary, while emphasizing different things about these readings than their Roman Catholic counterparts. This tradition remained among American Lutherans until the 1960s.
When the Roman Catholic Church began its internal reforms with the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, many things began to change, and many Protestants, including Lutherans, adopted aspects of this reform as a way of promoting greater Christian unity. One of these things was the move away from a one-year lectionary and the adoption of a three-year lectionary. This three-year lectionary commonly used in our churches (in slightly different forms) did away with the older tradition of Advent, and it has, in my opinion at least, contributed to a move toward Advent as a gloomy and penitential season rather than a joyful one.
What I learned from my German experience and subsequent research is that among Lutherans, the season of Advent was meant as a time of joy and hope in the promise of God in Jesus Christ. But over the last 50 or so years as Lutherans have used the three-year lectionary, the distinctive way that Lutherans looked at the season of Advent has been lost. Instead of a joyful time of proclamation of God’s promises, Advent has become a time of almost gloomy contemplation, with congregations each week of the season singing dirge-like renditions of “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,” as though Christ has not yet come and as if that coming were in question. (That hymn, for the record, can be powerful if understood and used in the right way).
There is room in our Lutheran churches for some freedom in practice, but I want to work toward reclaiming a Lutheran focus of Advent this season. The word “Advent” simply means “arrival” in Latin. To make a long story short, Lutheran preachers used the various Bible readings on the Sundays in Advent to highlight the three different ways that Jesus Christ arrives in our world:
The first Sunday, the gospel reading was the triumphal entry (same as Palm Sunday), where Jesus arrives in Jerusalem for the last week of his life by riding on a colt. Lutheran preachers focused on how Jesus Christ arrived in Jerusalem to give his life, and this gave them opportunity to preach about how the Son of God arrives for us in the flesh, the incarnation, the first arrival, the first coming into our world.
The second Sunday, the gospel reading focused on Jesus Christ’s promised coming in the future, his future arrival. As we confess in our creeds on Sunday morning, Lutheran preachers proclaimed that Christ will “come again to judge the living and the dead.” For believers in Christ, this is a comforting message of promise, not something to fear.
The third and fourth Sundays focused on John the Baptist/Baptizer. John the Baptist went before Jesus to proclaim him as “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Lutheran preachers focused on how John preached correctly. He was viewed as the prototypical Lutheran preacher, as he pointed to Christ as the good news. And because of this, Lutheran preachers focused on these Sundays on how Jesus Christ arrives in our world today as his message is preached.
Three different “advents.” This season is a joyful time of receiving the good news of Jesus Christ. It is not meant to be a gloomy time of contemplation or anticipation. The Scripture readings we will use this Advent season are my own modification of the three-year lectionary, meant to restore the older themes of Advent. And while I would not want to turn each Sunday of Advent into a Christmas hymn sing, if there are certain Christmas hymns that can assist us in hearing about these different “advents” in the weeks before Christmas, I say we have the freedom to sing them joyfully! I do not want to overshadow Advent hymns, but if we do not sing any Christmas hymns in the weeks before Christmas, then people have little opportunity to enjoy those treasures.
Let’s reclaim Lutheran Advent and receive the good news of Jesus Christ this season!
Pr. Tom Jacobson