All I Want for Christmas…
Hopes, Dreams, Desires, Longings, and Prayers
Advent and Christmas 2024
“What do you want?”
With this question, inflection is everything. WHAT do you want? What do YOU want? What do you WANT?
The placement of emphasis in the first two modes of asking the question might stem from annoyance or exasperation. But in the inflection of the last question a spirit of curiosity invites us to take one of life’s deepest questions to the depths of our soul… What do you WANT?
Getting to the bottom of our wants plumbs our deepest hopes, dreams, desires, and longings. Sure, plenty of wants only skim the surface. We want a double cheeseburger or new purse—maybe a nicer car or better job. Yet, we know those wants are connected to deeper desires—for comfort, pleasure, security—or status, approval, and meaning.
Throw in the holiday-sized expectations of Christmas and, suddenly, our wants are intensified. What do you WANT for Christmas? The usual wish list is the new outfit, premium subscription, puppy, or electronic device. But dig a little deeper. Scratch a little harder. We want peace. We want joy. We want love. We want hope. We want to be accepted and valued by our family and friends. To delve even further, these wants are connected to wanting God—to a God who fully knows us and loves us all the more. A God who is as close as a friend, sticks by you like a brother—a God who will not give up on you and isn’t finished repairing this broken world.
This season of Advent, followed by the twelve days of Christmas, we unfurl the small scrolls of the minor prophets, tucked at the end of the Hebrew Scriptures. These prophets not only name our fervent wants; they connect those wants to our grandest hopes, wildest dreams, deepest desires, largest longings, and truest prayers.
We hope this short guide to the series, All I Want For Christmas, will aid in a better understanding of yourself, your wants, and your God! Read on as we explore three questions that will help us along in this task:
- What is Advent?
- Who are the Minor Prophets?
- Where are we Going?
Table of Contents
What is Advent?
Derived from the Latin word, adventus (meaning “arrival”), the Advent season (the four weeks leading up to Christmas) is set apart on the Christian calendar as a period of waiting in anticipation and preparation to celebrate, once again, the miraculous arrival of a vulnerable infant born to humble parents. It is a time for Christians to recall that God so loved the world that He became one of us. In this season of anticipation and preparation, we Christians who live on the backside of the first Christmas also wait for Jesus to return as the king who will arrive in glory on the last day to bring a once and forever justice for all! In our waiting, we pray the final prayer in the Bible, “Come, Lord Jesus!” (Revelation 22:20).
To explore further:
- Advent is the first season of the Church Calendar…Experience it!
- Advent is a Season of Tension…Engage it!
Advent is the first season of the Church Calendar…Experience it!
“Christmas Creep” is upon us. Christmas trees went up in Costco before Halloween candy left the shelves. Christmas songs play on a loop everywhere we go. Christmas lights found their way onto trees before the last of the turkey was carved. And yet, Christians are summoned by the first season of the church calendar, not to the jollification of Christmas or the Bunny-egginess of Easter, but to a hushed silence…to a watching and a waiting…to the naming and the grieving of a world haplessly broken. Or, as the Advent hymn puts it: Long lay the world, in sin and error pining…
Experiencing Advent is getting in touch with the hopes, dreams, desires, longings, and prayers that reside underneath our wants—for the first time or for the first time in a long time. Some of those wants betray longings that don’t align with God’s best for us. Therefore, Advent is a Season of contrition. Some of those wants uncover longings for God’s intimate presence and imminent engagement. Therefore, Advent is a Season of attunement. Some of those wants uncover longings for God’s ultimate actions of mercy, justice, and renewal. Therefore, Advent is a Season of aching.
Quotes for Reflection
We begin our Christian year in waiting. We do not begin with our own frenetic effort or energy. We do not begin with the merriment of Christmas or the triumph of Easter. We do not begin with the work of the church or the mandate of the Great Commission. Instead, we begin in a place of yearning. We wait for our king to come.
Christmas with its compulsory jollification and insistence on being the “hap-hap-happiest season of all” devolves into saccharine escapism if we do not first take note of the darkness in the world and in our own lives.
“While there is scant hope of changing the culture around us, the Church need not be a fellow traveler. The call is for the Church to reclaim for the sake of its own life and mission Advent’s focus on the reign of God and, in so doing, to hone once again the counter-cultural edge of the Gospel at the very beginning of the liturgical year.”
“The other seasons in the church calendar follow the events in the historical life of Christ—his incarnation (Christmas), the manifestation to the gentiles (Epiphany), his ministry and preaching (the season after Epiphany), his path to crucifixion (Lent), his passion and death (Holy Week), the resurrection (Easter), the return to the Father’s right hand (Ascension), and the descent of the Holy Spirit (Pentecost)—with Trinity Sunday to round it off doctrinally. Advent, however, differs from the other seasons in that it looks beyond history altogether and awaits Jesus Christ’s coming again “in glory to judge the living and the dead.” In the cycle of seasons and festival days that takes the church through the life of Christ, it is Advent that gives us the final consummation; it is the season of the last things.”
A Season of Tension…Engage it!
As we unpack the meaning of Advent, you are already feeling the tension—Advent summons us to live life on the edge, to reside in the time between. Advent contains within itself the crucial balance of the “now” and the “not-yet” that our faith requires. As Paul put it to the Colossian Church: “Our lives are hidden with Christ in God (NOW!); when Christ who is our life (NOW) appears (NOT YET), then we will also appear (NOT YET) with him in glory” (Colossians 3:3,4).
Yes, it is difficult to hold this paradox, to place two ideas in the heart simultaneously, but we should…we must…we are deepened as human beings and as Christ followers when we experience this tension… Life with God is once and future, now and not-yet.
We are citizens of two worlds, or ages: “this present evil age” and “the age to come,” the kingdom of heaven (Phil. 3:20). Our true home is in the future, but it is made present reality to us by the Holy Spirit, “the guarantee of our redemption” (Ephesians 1:14).
Christians really and truly believe that Christ has died. Christ has risen. And Christ will come again. This truth is expanded in the Nicene Creed: “Christ will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and his kingdom will have no end.” As Episcopal Priest Fleming Rutledge puts it: “This is God’s definitive response to the deepest longings of the human soul. We hope that truth, beauty, and goodness will last, and that evil, sorrow, and death will not. It is the promise that we and all of the cosmos are not doomed to fate and left on our own, but that we will be made whole and new.”
I wish there were a way to give you a concrete application to what is being described here. All I’ve got is: “You’ve got to engage the tension. You’ve got to live into Advent.” Then, you’ll get it. Author Tish Harrison Warren gets at this dynamic of how Advent collapses time—the past, present, and future—into a single season of waiting for Immanuel, God With Us with an analogy: When you lose a loved one… there are past remembrances, present reminders, and the hope of reunification.” That is the tension of Advent…engage it!
Quotes for Reflection
“Advent is a season under stress…shaped by darkness and light, dread and hope, judgment and grace, second and first comings, terror and promise, end and beginning.”
“Advent is definitely not for sissies. Those who are willing and ready to face the special mood of the season will, I hope, find that it opens up the deep meaning of Christmas in a way that is simply not possible with a less rigorous approach.”
My yearly practice of waiting… shows me that I often forget how to wait on the Lord. I begin to believe I am the master and maker of my own life. I begin to believe that joy is self-made through my own ingenuity and hard work. I begin to believe that the things I most long for are within my grasp if I can only master the mad task of controlling my own life. I begin to believe I am the engineer of my own deliverance. And into these fevered deceptions, Advent comes each year and quietly asks me to pause, to remember that we do not bring the kingdom of God to the world through our own effort or on our own timeline. We wait for one outside of us and outside of time. We wait for our coming king.
Who are the Minor Prophets?
The minor prophets are the twelve prophets who, spanning several centuries from the 9th through the 5th centuries BC, ministered to the People of God. They are called prophets because they foretold the destiny of the people of God, urging them to repent from worshipping idols and to return to the love of their One True God. They were considered minor not because they were young or vertically challenged, but because they authored twelve little scrolls, tucked away in the back of the Hebrew Scriptures. Though often overlooked, these scrolls contain powerful messages about God’s love, faithfulness, mercy, and justice. Specifically, the prophets commend covenant faithfulness through living righteously before God, ethically before our fellow humanity, and, all the while, working against injustice. Yet, the prophets also reveal it is only God’s abiding faithfulness that would keep His covenant commitments unbroken, and that we would consistently fail at living up to our side of the agreement. Thus, the prophets hinted at the coming of a Messiah who would bring healing, forgiveness, and restoration.v
Here is a general timeline:
- Hosea: 8th century BC (around 750-722 BC)
- Joel: Date is uncertain, but likely in the 9th or 8th century BC
- Amos: 8th century BC (around 760-750 BC)
- Obadiah: Likely in the 6th century BC, possibly after the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC
- Jonah: Traditionally dated to the 8th century BC, though some suggest a later date
- Micah: 8th century BC (around 735-700 BC)
- Nahum: Likely in the 7th century BC (around 650-612 BC)
- Habakkuk: Late 7th century BC, just before the Babylonian conquest (around 600 BCE)
- Zephaniah: Late 7th century BC (during the reign of King Josiah, around 640-609 BCE)
- Haggai: Post-exilic, around 520 BC
- Zechariah: Also post-exilic, around 520-480 BC
- Malachi: Likely in the 5th century BC, after the return from exile
As Advent is a Season of watching and waiting, of wanting and longing, the church regularly unfurls these scrolls to unwind these prophetic messages of longing. The minor prophets are shot through with longing for God’s presence, justice, peace, restoration, and transformation. Ultimately these longings are met in the seminal longing for the Messiah—an Anointed One who would come to “set the world to rights” (N.T. Wright), and one day “cause all sad things to become untrue” (Samwise Gamgee).
On the other side of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, we understand Jesus to be the Messianic fulfillment of all of our longings. This Advent Season we will look at some of our particular longings, and how Jesus meets them presently and will one day meet them eternally.
Where are we Going?
Join us throughout Advent and Christmas as we journey together in the Minor Prophets.
| Date | Scripture | Title |
|---|---|---|
| 12/1 | Zechariah 2:10-13 | All I want for Christmas... Christmas with a God who is near |
| 12/8 | Amos 9:11-15 | All I want for Christmas... a Home that will never fall apart |
| 12/15 | Hosea 14:1-9 | All I want for Christmas... a God who will not give up on me |
| 12/18 | - | Blue Christmas | Bringing our Dashed Hopes, Shattered Dreams, Unmet Desires, Broken Longings, & Unanswered Prayers to God |
| 12/22 | Habakkuk 3:16-19 | All I want for Christmas... Joy no circumstance can take away |
| 12/24 | Zephaniah 3:14-17 | All I want for Christmas... an Identity grounded in love |
| 12/29 | Joel 3:17-21 | All I want for Christmas... Justice that will be served |
| 1/5 | Micah 5:1-5a | All I want for Christmas... Security No threat can take away |
Sources Explored
Advent: The Once and Future Coming of Jesus Christ, Fleming Rutledge.
Advent: The Fullness of Time, Tish Harrison Warren.
Come Let Us Adore Him: A Daily Advent Devotional, Paul David Tripp.
Advent for Everyone, N.T. Wright.