This week, Christians begin a new liturgical year and enter into
the rich and ancient four-week season of Advent. For most
American Christians, Advent passes virtually unnoticed, as the
celebration of "Christmas" as a secular and intensely commercial
feast begins the day after Thanksgiving. Yet the time of Advent
offers us an opportunity to dive deeply into a counter-cultural
time of quiet reflection, a space of hopeful and patient waiting
and discernment about how God's incarnation has meaning and is
at work in our world today. Before the middle of the fourth
century, there were no liturgical seasons, such as Advent or
Lent, or any idea of a "liturgical year," something many
Christians take for granted today. The great Paschal Easter
feast was the central focus of the Christian year, along with
the Sunday gatherings, considered "little Easters." Advent is
first noted around the year 350, about the same time Christmas
is first mentioned as being celebrated. The date of Christmas
might well have been placed ne