The Advent Wreath and How to Make One
Families, bible study groups, home fellowships and churches can easily make advent a part of their corporate celebration of Christmas. The following is a template you can follow in order to adapt the meditations in this book for use in a group setting with an Advent Wreath.
Advent wreaths are a great way to build anticipation for your celebration of Christmas. They are very simple in their design—often made from the trimmings from a Christmas tree or evergreen clippings wound together as a wreath. Like a wedding ring, the circular shape of the wreath reminds us of the unending nature of God—that He has no beginning and no end.
The wreath is adorned with five candles—four around the perimeter and one in the middle. Three of the four perimeter candles are usually purple, the color associated with royalty to remind you of the Kingship of Christ. The other perimeter candle is usually pink, representing the joy of His coming.
The perimeter candles are lit on the Sundays leading up to Christmas as a way of counting down the weeks until Christmas Eve or Christmas Day when the center candle, the Christ candle, is lit. The Christ candle is white, representing Christ and His birth, and it is in the middle of the wreath to remind us that Christ is the center of all things. “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given” to Him. (Mt 28:18)
Beyond these basic appointments, the wreath can be decorated in any way you wish. As the weeks go on, the light from the wreath glows brighter and brighter in intensity. This is a wonderfully appropriate aesthetic reminding us of three very important truths.
First, we are reminded that “the true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.” (Jn 1:9)
Second, as the light intensifies and the darkness is pushed back, we are reminded of why Christ came—to overcome the darkness and power of sin in our lives. As Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (Jn 8:12)
Third, we are reminded of the call Jesus gives His followers to be light in this world: “A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. So also, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and praise your Father Who is in heaven.” (Mt 5:14-16) As the light of the wreath intensifies, we remember who Jesus is and what He has done, and we anticipate His purpose and intent to use our lives to bear witness to Him.
The four perimeter candles of the wreath are usually assigned particular themes which help unfold the story of Christmas. There is a lot of latitude in the themes you can assign to the candles because the Advent Wreath exists to serve the worshipper, not the other way around.
A.S. Peterson has crafted a work of compelling historical fiction which begs the question, “Can this really be a debut novel?” With dogged fidelity, Peterson captures the spirit, manners, and social conditions present during the American Revolutionary War. We meet colorful, credible characters who navigate the high seas of life and love, dependence and independence, war and peace, truth and consequence, and despite forays into dark places, The Fiddler’s Gun is beautiful, lyrical, and redemptive.
Walt Wangerin, Jr. strikes again.
Janner Igiby lives in Glipwood, a nothing little village in the land of Skree, on the edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness. Manhood is on the horizon, but Janner finds it hard to feel much hope for the future. Skree is ruled by foreign oppressors, snake men called the Fangs of Dang, servants of a shadowy emperor named Gnag the Nameless. The Skreeans are weak and weaponless. They’re even tool-less. Any Skreean who needs to use a hoe has to borrow one from the Fangs (and fill out the requisite paperwork). And from time to time, the Black Carriage arrives in Glipwood to carry young Skreeans toward an unknown fate across the Dark Sea.
I am not a fan of Civil War literature; in fact, I have always thought of it as one of those weird sub-genres for obsessive types. They’re almost like Trekkies with their re-enactments and maniacal devotion to detail. It’s just not my thing (although I’m secretly jealous that they get to dress up and shoot cannons).
A Randall Goodgame song is like a great independent movie. Characters deliver lines like they were lifted from a break room, a truck stop, or a downtown diner. Seemingly incongruent scenes are juxtaposed and plot isn’t obvious; in fact, narrative–a good story–is often more evident than linear plot lines. An indie movie, like a Randall Goodgame song, seems to tell itself. Rather than being rudely yanked by a chain through a sequence of contrived events, with a Randall Goodgame song, I have the sense that I’m being allowed a willing, but vicarious sneak peak into the real lives of his real characters.
Sara Groves irritates me just a little bit. With each album she makes, she moves from strength to strength and is always raising the bar with the quality, depth, and lyrical ambition of her work. And as a fellow artist, that’s just a little irritating since it means the rest of us are going to have to work harder if we hope to keep up.
I am outside on my front porch. The yellowed leaves are methodically falling from the black walnut in the yard, my breath is chalky visible in the recent cold snap, and lately I have been exploring the unpleasant nuances of the dark night of a soul - my own, to be exact. It is a strange passion we live out on this over-glorified orb of rock hurtling through space at some rate that I’m sure would astound me were I to know what it was. It is an odd series of days, I am realizing, when you question your own faith more than you question your own doubt. And, indeed, it is these nagging questions which have prompted me to share my thoughts on Andrew Peterson’s 2003 album, Love and Thunder.
11-year old Reuben Land, a character in the 2001 book Peace Like a River, provides narration that is clear-eyed and insightful, yet retains the magic, wonder, and innocence of youth. I found it easy to entrust my imagination to the author’s clever method of telling the story through the sensibilities of a pre-teen boy. An author with lesser skill would have either made the boy too smart-alecky for his own good or impossibly cute.
I just finished a book that upon closing it, I felt like it finished me in a sense. A quiet meditative book that reached down and stirred the deep waters in me. It’s Marilynne Robinson’s 2005 Pulitzer prize winner Gilead, given to me by my friend Andrew Peterson.
Eric Peters’s body of work addresses a diverse range of topics, but hope is a recurring theme that gently percolates in the midst of it all. And yet, somewhere between the 2001 masterpiece Land of the Living, and Scarce, the flavor of hope that Peters’s work emits has evolved closer to a tone that is more resolute than what came before. And though the complexion of hope has a broad range, the lyrics from Scarce–while intermittently contrite and timorous as in previous efforts, are now strengthened and bolstered by roots that have grown deeper, radiating an underlying grit and security.
Having read The Great Divorce many times over the years, I’ve found this classic from the great C.S. Lewis to be full of startling clarity and depth on the differences between Heaven and Hell. The only thing both have in common is that both begin in the human will; we can either let Heaven enter us and rule in us to blossom into love and goodness, or allow Hell to infect and reign in our hearts by the daily refusal to submit to Heaven.
Even if you haven’t heard Room to Breathe, its still likely you’ve heard Andy Gullahorn. He’s what I’d call a heavy lifter by trade. He writes lyrics, plays guitar, arranges vocals and adds production help to the work of artists like Jill Phillips and Andrew Peterson.
Allow me to preface this by telling you that I am a great despiser of gushing reviews. I’d much rather write (or read) a scathing dismemberment of the latest Brett Ratner film or Terry Goodkind book than suffer through four hundred words of overblown hyperbole about even the best of things. But when asked to write some thoughts on Frederick Buechner’s Godric, no amount of distaste for high praise was able to intervene. I hope you’ll take what I say with the understanding that I do not say it readily or lightly.
We started this tradition just last year. Except that my wife hated the idea of 3 purple and one pink candle (huge color clash with our house decorations), so we ended up with all green for the outer candles.
What observing advent as a family helped us do, and will help us to do this year, is to teach us how to enter into the story to which we already belong. Some people deride Advent as a practice, because to them, it’s the time of year where we pretend Jesus hasn’t come yet. But that’s not it at all. We enter the story through Advent, and more importantly the Story enters us.