The Advent season is upon us. Not Christmas, but Advent.

“So, what’s the difference?”

Well, there’s a big difference, actually. A person can understand the difference by first admitting that not all teachers are human. Seasons are professors, too. If we’re paying attention, even the earth’s varying seasons teach us something. Ralph Waldo Emerson described summer as a time that teaches us to swim and to drink in the wild air, which is to say, it’s a time for getting out and occupying creation. Conversely, John Steinbeck noted that the value of summer is best known in the depth of winter. Shakespeare added to the wintry lesson, “Here feel we the penalty of Adam, the season’s difference; as, the icy fang.” In other words, we can blame the devilish serpent and Adam for winter.

Again, seasons teach.

I’ll add that the Christians who jump straight from Thanksgiving to Christmas without experiencing the season of Advent are truly missing out on something extraordinary.

Advent means “coming.” When you know someone or something is on the way, you prepare. No small part of the Advent season’s purpose is to stir thoughtful anticipation and to refresh Christianity’s two-fold longing for the arrival of Christ. Here’s what I mean by “two-fold.”

If an Advent pilgrim is paying attention, he’ll first sense Advent’s deep concern for a savior from the perpetual nighttime of Sin and Death. He’ll notice the season’s explicit call to contemplate this unfortunate predicament, and he’ll be urged to look toward a little city with a manger. He’ll be prompted to prepare for Jesus, the One whose incarnation was the very inbreaking of God to save us. He’ll also notice an underlying promise: the One who first came in lowliness won’t return in the same condition. The next time He comes, it will be in glory as the divine Judge over all things. When He returns, He’ll set all things right and take His people to be with Him forever.

Advent ponders these two arrivals. The season is in place to help us, mainly because if left to ourselves, we’ll be enticed toward the first of the two—and this will happen for all the wrong reasons. Setting aside the reality that we are not inheritors of this world but of the world to come, we’ll begin to see Christmas for everything that it isn’t—an opportunity to accumulate things. It becomes little more than a glittering season of commercialism, inevitably resulting in fast-fleeting joy. Advent, by contrast, is designed to exchange the superficial for the depth of a divine event—the breathtaking moment when God actually entered our world to fulfill His promise of salvation, claiming us as His own, and inaugurating a hope and a future that extend far beyond what this temporary world could ever promise or give.

By the way, I should interject and say it’s entirely fine to put up a Christmas tree, string lights on the front porch, and decorate our homes in jolly anticipation during Advent. Some would disagree. I’m not one of those folks. The Thoma family put up their festive decorations the weekend before Thanksgiving. For one, we had to. It was the only weekend we’d all be around to help accomplish it. Besides, I’m not so rigid as to think these traditions are incapable of adding to the anticipation. They can help prompt the warmth and expectation I mentioned. Still, even as the Christmas tree twinkles and the tiny Dickens-like villages adorn our fireplace mantles, Advent calls us to make sure our hearts remain focused on something that glistens with a brighter shine. Advent’s appointed lessons keep our gaze steady, reminding us that everything we see—the tree, the lights, the gifts we receive at Christmas, whether wrapped or unwrapped—all have an expiration date on them. We might not be able to see it, but it is there. Indeed, this world is passing away (1 John 2:15-17, Matthew 6:19-20, James 4:14, 1 Corinthians 7:31, and the like), and while the surrounding décor might represent a sense of our joy, it’ll only ever be a hint at the unsurpassed joy Christ brought in His birth and will bring again in its fullest at the Last Day.

Advent zeros in on these things. It whispers to the soul, “Prepare in this world for the next. Prepare not just your home but your heart.” It readies us for Jesus, the Divine Gift that does not fade, the Hope that does not diminish, and the Joy that is truly everlasting.