Why the Liturgical Year Begins with Advent

We all know how the New Year begins. On December 31, people gather at fancy parties or celebrate at home. We eat, we drink, and we try to stay awake until the final seconds before midnight, when everyone begins the familiar countdown: “Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one - Happy New Year!” Couples kiss, family and friends hug, glasses are raised, and we celebrate the beginning of another year. Then, as soon as we wake up on New Year’s Day, we begin making resolutions about all the things we intend to change.

But that is neither the day nor the way the Church celebrates the beginning of a new year. The Church begins the year well before January 1, on the First Sunday of Advent, and it begins without fireworks, loud countdowns, or ambitious resolutions. Instead, we enter a season marked by yearning, penitence, prayer, fasting, and watchfulness. The white and gold of Christ the King Sunday gives way to the purple or deep blue of Advent, the first candle of the Advent wreath is lit, and the prophets, once again, begin calling us to prepare for the coming of Christ. This year, the First Sunday of Advent falls on November 29. By then, the world around us will already be well into Christmas, but the Church will be asking us to wait.

The liturgical year is not organized around the civil calendar but around the life of Christ and the story of what God has done to save us. Through the seasons of the Church, we walk with Christ from His coming and birth through His ministry, suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension. We continue through Pentecost, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and the birth of the Church, and then into the long season of learning to live as His people. The Church begins her year with Advent, entering once again into the longing for the promised Messiah and preparing for the coming of the Savior.

How the Church Year Developed

The earliest Christians did not have the complete liturgical calendar that we know today, but from the beginning, the life of the Church was shaped by sacred time. Christians gathered on Sunday, the day of the resurrection, to hear the Scriptures, offer their prayers, and celebrate the Eucharist. Each Sunday was a celebration of the risen Christ, and the annual remembrance of His suffering, death, and resurrection at Easter soon became the great center of the Christian year.

The calendar that we know now did not appear all at once. As Christians began setting aside particular times to remember the events of Christ’s life, an annual cycle of feasts and seasons gradually developed around Easter and the weekly celebration of Sunday. The Church established days and seasons for remembering Christ’s birth, baptism, ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension, as well as the coming of the Holy Spirit and the faithful witness of the saints.

Advent emerged in the Church during the fourth and fifth centuries as a season of preparation for the coming of Christ, although its length and practices varied from place to place. In some regions, it lasted approximately forty days and was marked by fasting, prayer, and repentance in a way that closely resembled Lent. Over the centuries, the Western Church settled upon the four Sundays before Christmas as the season of Advent, and the First Sunday of Advent came to mark the beginning of the new Church year.

Why the Year Begins with Waiting

It might seem more natural for the Church year to begin with Christmas, with the birth of Christ, or with Easter, with His glorious resurrection from the dead. But the story of our salvation does not begin at the manger. Before the birth of the Savior came centuries of promise, prophecy, longing, and waiting as generation after generation looked for the One God had promised to send.

And so the Church year begins by taking us back into that long season of waiting. We hear Isaiah speak of the coming kingdom, we listen to John the Baptist call God’s people to repentance, and we join our longing with all those who waited for the Messiah without knowing when or how He would come. In doing so, Advent teaches us something important about our own lives with God because we, too, spend much of our lives waiting - waiting for God to answer, to heal, to restore, and to fulfill what He has promised. We do not always understand what God is doing during these long periods of waiting, but Advent reminds us that His silence does not mean that He has forgotten us or abandoned His promises.

Advent Looks Back and Forward

The word Advent comes from the Latin adventus, meaning “coming” or “arrival,” and during this season, the Church turns our attention toward both comings of Christ. We look back to His first coming in humility, when the Son of God took on human flesh and entered the world as a helpless infant, and we look forward to His second coming in glory, when He will return to judge the living and the dead and make all things new.

This double focus is beautifully expressed in the traditional Collect for the First Sunday of Advent:

Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious Majesty, to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal.—1549 Book of Common Prayer

The Christ who came to us in humility will one day come again in majesty, and the collect asks God to give us the grace to live now as people who believe this promise is true.

This is also why the readings at the beginning of Advent tend to focus on watchfulness, judgment, and the return of Christ rather than immediately taking us to Mary and Joseph and the journey to Bethlehem. Those stories will come as Christmas draws near, but the Church begins by reminding us that Advent is not only about remembering something that happened long ago. We are waiting for the return of Christ, and, like the parable of the five wise virgins in the Gospel of Matthew, the Church calls us to remain awake and prepared for the coming of our King.

Another Way to Understand Time

The civil calendar helps us organize the necessary details of our lives, but the liturgical calendar places our days within the saving work of God. It reminds us that the life of Christ is not simply one story among many that we remember from the past. His birth, death, resurrection, and promised return give meaning and direction to the whole of history, including our own small place within it.

We experience this understanding of time most clearly when we gather around the Lord’s Table. At the Eucharist, we do not speak of Christ’s death and resurrection as events that are over and have nothing more to do with us. We remember what He has done, receive His grace in the present moment, and proclaim His death until He comes again. Every celebration of the Eucharist looks back to the cross and resurrection while also looking forward to the day when Christ will return, and we will feast with Him in His kingdom.

This makes the beginning of the Church year very different from the beginning of the civil year. January often begins with resolutions centered on what we intend to change or accomplish through our own determination. The liturgical year begins by turning our attention away from ourselves and toward Christ, reminding us of our need for a Savior and teaching us to receive salvation as the gift of God rather than something we can accomplish for ourselves.

Beginning the Year with Christ

The liturgical year begins with Advent because the Christian life is shaped by the coming of Christ. Before the joy and feasting of Christmas, the Church gives us time to watch, repent, pray, and prepare, reminding us that we are still a people waiting for our King. And so another year of living within the story of salvation begins, not with confidence in our own plans or resolutions, but with our eyes fixed upon Christ and our hearts crying out with the Church, “Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus!”

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If you’d like a helpful guide for celebrating Advent at home, make sure to check out The Liturgical Home: Advent.

And if you’d like help keeping up with the liturgical year, check out my liturgical calendars and planners for the 2027 liturgical year.