Do you celebrate the Advent season each year but wonder, why exactly do we call it Advent? On this episode, we discover the fascinating evolution and purpose of Advent in Christianity as we sit down with Randy Peterson, author and member of the Hope community. We learn some of the rich history and significance of this season as well as fun facts like, why all those candles? A promise rings clear throughout our conversation: Advent is a time to prepare our hearts for the coming of Jesus. As we enter into this time of celebration, we invite you to experience Advent with HOPE this year!
Have a Monday School Idea? Email us at podcast@meethope.org
Thanks for being a part of the HOPE community as we continue conversations about faith and hope! You can learn more at meethope.org or find us on socials @meethopechurch. Join in for worship on Sundays at meethope.live! Have a question? Contact us at podcast@meethope.org.
Do you celebrate the Advent season each year but wonder, why exactly do we call it Advent? On this episode, we discover the fascinating evolution and purpose of Advent in Christianity as we sit down with Randy Peterson, author and member of the Hope community. We learn some of the rich history and significance of this season as well as fun facts like, why all those candles? A promise rings clear throughout our conversation: Advent is a time to prepare our hearts for the coming of Jesus. As we enter into this time of celebration, we invite you to experience Advent with HOPE this year!
Have a Monday School Idea? Email us at podcast@meethope.org
Thanks for being a part of the HOPE community as we continue conversations about faith and hope! You can learn more at meethope.org or find us on socials @meethopechurch. Join in for worship on Sundays at meethope.live! Have a question? Contact us at podcast@meethope.org.
Speaker 1:
Welcome to the Meet Hope podcast, where we have conversations about faith and hope. Hope is one church made of people living out their faith through two expressions in person and online. We believe a hybrid faith experience can lead to a growing influence in our community and our world for the sake of others. Welcome to Hope.
Speaker 2:
Hey, hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Meet Hope podcast, and today is an episode we call Monday School. So Monday School is kind of a instead of Sunday School for those of you who attended Sunday School growing up. We are calling it Monday School because we release these episodes on Mondays and these episodes are more educational, I guess, in their theme and that we're answering questions about why things happen at church, how do things happen, what does this mean? And I'm here today with Randy Peterson. Hi, hi, randy, how are you?
Speaker 3:
Doing well.
Speaker 2:
So did you attend Sunday School growing up, absolutely Every Sunday?
Speaker 3:
I was there.
Speaker 2:
So I would call Randy a longtime listener but first time caller to our podcast. Is that okay that I say that? Sure, because you have been part of Hope's original. You've been part of Hope since the beginning and you're a part of the original core team. A few decades ago, like you, were just a young teenager probably.
Speaker 3:
Yes, I don't want to admit how many years ago that was, but yeah, I was a friend of Jeff Bell's for a few years before he had the calling to start the church. I had worked with his aunt Sally and she had the idea that he and I would be good friends, and so she introduced us and we were good friends, and so when God started calling him to start a church, he was talking to me about it. Now I was one of several people that he was running that idea by, and so at a certain point I realized I needed to get involved with this new church and I joined up, joined the core group, and the rest is history. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:
I was the best in my life, and so you've been a part of it from the beginning, and you have had different roles. Currently, you are the chair of Hope's lead team, or wrapping up your your turn.
Speaker 3:
Yes, I'll be. I'll be leaving that. I've been in on the lead team for a number of years and it's time for me to cycle off. Okay but it's been a great experience yeah but you've been a small group leader.
Speaker 2:
You've written material for Hope, you've. You've been on staff for a while when I first came right as a part-time staff member right yeah, and then and you also have always served as long as I've been here, as part of what we call the preaching team. You're one of our preachers on on the bench with us, and you also are part of our preaching planning team, where we plan and build the preaching themes and the messages, and I always value your, your time there. I think it's the things you have to say, the way you. I always say you're our editor and you put things together for us when we're, when we're sharing ideas.
Speaker 3:
Well, thank you it's. That is a great experience, and I have been just in awe of the development of that preaching team, and I could go on and on about it. I won't but but at first, Jeff and me.
Speaker 2:
That could be another episode.
Speaker 3:
Sure, let's do that. But yeah, jeff would go on vacation in the summer and say, what are we going to do? And I said I'll, I'll preach, and. And so I filled in for him in those first couple of years. But then we began to assemble more preaching talent and right now I'm like the fifth or sixth string preacher, which is fine with me, which is which I really love, because it means that we have some really great communicators, and, and through that whole group, there is this combination of being true to God's word and, at the same time, connecting with people's lives, and every one of our preachers does that extremely well. And so in those preaching planning meetings, I'm just happy to be listening to everybody else talk about how the Bible connects with people's lives and then editing as you say I mean zeroing in on.
Speaker 3:
Ok, what are the important ideas and how are we going to organize this to get a good series?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I have so many things I could say. We could talk about this, because I love those meetings as well and we probably should make an episode because we could tell some funny stories about that as well. But some quick background. You attended Wheaton College, I did, and you are a, and what was your major?
Speaker 3:
I would. I majored in ancient languages for you. So whenever I quote the Greek, I'm not just trying to impress people, I'm really using what I learned.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, you're honoring your honor and your education, and by profession, you are a writer. I am Right, and how many books have you written?
Speaker 3:
I've written about 60 books over the years and I mean I've had a long time to do that Because I'm old, but but a lot of those books are with other people pastors and a lot of psychologists I've worked with and they bring their content and I help them shape it and write it and I get my name on the book then. But I've done a few on my own as well. But yeah, a lot of that is co writing.
Speaker 2:
Right and well. You are the ideal person to have on this episode of Monday School, because we're going to be talking about what is Advent and why do we celebrate it so real quick, and I know the answer to this question. But when you were growing up, did your church celebrate Advent, Randy? Well, we did not.
Speaker 3:
Okay, I went to a conservative Baptist church and and I was feeling that in that Baptist tradition they didn't want to do anything that was too Catholic in nature. So Advent seemed like a Catholic thing and we didn't do lent either. Lent was a Catholic thing. And so I think you still find that among a number of the more Baptist like Protestant churches that they avoid liturgical things in the services and they avoid the church calendar that that Catholics use. There is this middle group of Protestants and Methodists are in that middle group, lutherans, to some extent Presbyterians, where they do follow liturgy to some extent in their services and they follow a church calendar. And so I really learned about Advent and Lent through Hope Church, through my experience as a Methodist now, and so it is a rich tradition in the history of the church.
Speaker 3:
And so it's. It's a good thing for Christians to practice.
Speaker 2:
Yes, so while you didn't practice it growing up at your church, we still think it's important, yes, and we're going to talk about it now we are. So I did a quick Google definition of Advent, because that's. When I say research, I mean Google, and Advent defined by Google, is the first season of the Christian church year leading up to Christmas and including the four preceding Sundays. That's in a nutshell. That's Advent.
Speaker 3:
Well, yes.
Speaker 2:
But tell us more about it.
Speaker 3:
Well, what's really interesting when you look back into the early history of the church is that Christmas was not that big a deal in the first couple of centuries. Easter was. Everything was focused on Easter the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Speaker 2:
Which makes sense, right, because that was a big deal.
Speaker 3:
It's the core of the faith and so, absolutely that is what became really important and new members joined the church on Easter Sunday and they were baptized on Easter Sunday. That that was the big celebration, as the church was growing and so that preparation period of Lent occurred for Easter what you find in church history. It really wasn't until the 300s that people began thinking more about the birth of Jesus, about how to celebrate the birth of Jesus, about the nature of Jesus. There were a lot of conversations about the human and divine and that whole combination. And it was the late 300s where we have the first inklings in history of the importance of this time of Advent, celebrating the Christmas advent of Jesus. In fact, the first important event was Epiphany, the celebration of the Magi, the Magi bringing gifts to Jesus. So January 6th became the feast of Epiphany and there would be a sort of a Lent-like period before Epiphany where people would fast and would focus on the giving of gifts to Jesus.
Speaker 3:
Over the next 100 years or so, it morphed into more of the Advent time and focused on Christmas, on the whole story of the birth of Jesus which we had in the scriptures, of course, and so by the end of the 400s, beginning of the 500s, the Advent season was beginning to be observed. That's a lot of history that is going to clog up people's brains. But the fact is it is an ancient tradition, and not only the holiday itself, but the time of preparation and advance of it becomes important.
Speaker 2:
then after that. So the first Christmas Eve service probably didn't happen until centuries later, right?
Speaker 3:
That is probably the case. Yes, centuries.
Speaker 2:
That is really interesting and fascinating. So if someone were to be at hope during the Advent season and they would see that on those Sundays of Advent we typically will light a candle and there's four candles around a wreath, and those four Advent candles are one as lit for each Sunday leading up to Christmas, and they symbolize four things hope, peace, joy and love.
Speaker 3:
Well, I want to spring some questions on you. Okay, Does it matter what order those come in? Because we've debated that in our in some of our worship planning.
Speaker 2:
As far as I know, there is no order. Okay, I've also wondered and I don't know if you know this, because this is not in our in our rehearsal why are they purple and why is one?
Speaker 3:
pink and I am. I am not. Not sure about that. I think there is the sense that you're halfway through and so you change the color when you're halfway through, do you?
Speaker 2:
know more about that. No, you know what? I don't. I think that the I believe the pink one and this we're way off track here. But I think the pink one has to do with joy and that's why that one's pink and Ashley's nodding saying that I am correct, and the other three hope, peace and love would be purple, I guess, being royal. And then the white candle in the center is the Christ candle and that would make sense that it's white.
Speaker 3:
And so many things in your tradition that mean whatever we want them to mean, and and they there is such rich meaning in our faith that we we can attach just about anything there are. There are some purists who are rolling over right now, right, if they're listening to this, yeah. Yeah, they're having trouble with this right now.
Speaker 2:
Sure, okay, okay. So pink is a shift from repentance towards celebration. Well, that's great. That was. That. Was Ashley doing some real time research, which means she was on Google.
Speaker 3:
I'm impressed.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah. So so again back to Google. So another definition, which I think is great and I ran out of what you're going to share with us next, is it's the arrival of a notable person, thing or event. So advent means arrival. Yes, right.
Speaker 3:
Yes, and that's. It's an interesting thing in the language there that that the word advent just means arrival, coming something, and and yet it's a. We don't use the word advent in our normal speech. It's just. You know, I am my advent to the church to record this podcast occurred at 11 o'clock. I don't say we don't talk that way, I just came over and you know, that's what we say.
Speaker 3:
But so the word advent becomes a special word that we attach to things of that are notable things that are important, things that are going to, you know, change something, and that certainly the case when we're talking about the arrival of Jesus and the the birth of of Jesus. But actually in church history there are different kinds of advent that we talk about, the advent of Christ there's a first one and a second one, and and Jesus talked a lot about coming again- about his second advent at the end of time.
Speaker 3:
And there are lots of scriptures about that and, of course, there are lots of debates among Christians about exactly when things are going to happen and what's going to happen, and all of that. And we don't want to get into that, but the the advent season originally observed both the first and second advent.
Speaker 3:
And, and so that is something that we can do as well, as we look forward to the second coming of Christ and, to some extent, this sense of halfway up. What they used to do for the first two weeks of advent. They focused on the second advent of. Christ the coming again, and then they, they moved back into the Christmas time there and maybe that's where where the shift of the colors shifts Previous to that, you're repenting, you're preparing to meet your maker, kind of.
Speaker 3:
And then, after that, we return to the joy of Jesus coming to to redeem us and to share our, our humanity.
Speaker 3:
So, you have those two advents of Jesus, but there's a third one that I ran across where certain people over the years have focused on on the advent of Jesus into our hearts, into our lives. There's one Carol that where there's a verse that says oh, come to my heart, lord Jesus. There is room in my heart for thee. And that's that third kind of advent. I mean, it's all the advent of Jesus and but it's Jesus coming into our hearts and and that's really what we focus on here at home.
Speaker 2:
Absolutely.
Speaker 3:
The church stuff and the church celebrations. We love those, they're great and we pull out all the stops to celebrate the big advent of Jesus.
Speaker 2:
Yes.
Speaker 3:
But the purpose of it all is that people would come into a relationship with Jesus that. Jesus would enter their hearts and make a difference in their lives.
Speaker 2:
Yes, yeah, and that, and that's what advent is just this time, not only is time preparation and and it's tradition, but it's really about this personal advent that we can have in our own lives and, while it may be something that surprises us, we have this chance to get used to this idea of of who God is and how God works in our life. So, randy, it's been good. Thanks so much for being a part of this. I want to also encourage you all, if, if there are ways that we want to help you celebrate advent, not only the a traditional Advent, but also to celebrate this Advent of Jesus coming into your life.
Speaker 2:
Some things coming up are Advent Reflections is a service that we have on this coming Wednesday evening at 7 pm on November 29th. Also, our worship arts concerts are coming up soon, on Sunday, december 9th, at 5 pm, and our kids worship concert on December 10th at 4 pm, and our Christmas services on December 23rd at 4 pm and 6 pm and December 24th at 10.30 am, 4 pm and 6 pm, and all of these things you can find in our show notes and also at meadhopeorg forward slash Christmas. Hey, randy, thanks for joining us for Monday School. It's been fun. Thanks for letting me throw a few things in there that weren't in our notes, and it's been fun together.
Speaker 3:
Thanks, it's been great to be here.
Speaker 2:
Have a great day everybody.
Speaker 1:
Thanks for being a part of the Hope community as we continue our conversations about faith and hope. If you don't already, please join us for worship on Sundays or on demand. You can learn more at meadhopeorg or find us on socials at meadhopeorg.