Sent: Missional Reflections for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany

By Matt Watson

I’m a man of tradition. I went to Texas A&M, and they have made a whole cult out of tradition. It makes me feel secure that I have the context of history behind me. If someone figured it out once, why reinvent the wheel? If such and such process was good enough for people for thousands of years, who are we to think that the last hundred matters that much? Not all the time, but generally, this is how I think.

I did not grow up with Advent calendars, lighting candles, or wreaths. Nor did I know that there was more than just Christmas. Oh, we had family traditions. For example, when I was a young child, each year Mom and I would make a birthday cake for Jesus. Nothing wrong with that. But as I grew in faith and became acquainted with church history, I learned there were more, historically rooted, traditions to explore.

The protestant Reformation refocused the church away from tradition and back to God through Scripture. This was right and good because the church had usurped the authority of God’s Word. However, not everything needed to be discarded. Many churches today have eschewed the traditions of our forefathers in the faith. We see this when churches ignore psalms and hymns in favor of pop contemporary “church” music.

Yes, it is a secondary issue, but it is still an important one. We are always so preoccupied with, “Well does that matter to go to heaven or not?” and miss the beauty and grace that God has given us in other ways.

So it is with the church calendar. Too many protestants can’t see past the myriad feast days to saints and have forgotten that all of time is the Lord’s. The whole year is his. The calendar is his. The church calendar with its seasons and feast days was once widely used to help people worship in every season, from Advent to All Saints Day. We have lost something beautiful when we discard these rhythms of life that God has given us.

That is why I was excited to write our church’s Advent devotional this year. Sent: Missional Reflections for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany. Sent is a daily devotional spanning three seasons of the church calendar from December 1 to January 6: Advent, Christmastide, and Epiphany. The goal of this devotional is that through reflections on anticipating Christ’s return, celebrating his incarnation, and proclaiming his name, we would cultivate our hearts to fully engage with the story of Jesus.

It is a streamlined devotional. You won't find Christmas songs and craft ideas in it. Maybe next year, but for now, you can find those elsewhere. The resource I recommend most is Sacred Seasons by Danielle Hitchen (https://www.catechesisbooks.com/products/p/sacredseasons). She transformed scholarly work into something practical and family-focused. In her book, she goes into further detail about the calendar and church seasons, with some suggested ways to worship in those times. I’ve endeavored to use it as a guide for my family throughout the year and hope you do too.

I hope that you pick up a copy of our Advent devotional, or use the .pdf version which you can access here. More so, I hope that as we read the daily Scripture passages and meditate on them, our dry bones will be brought back to life and our hearts renewed to worship the Lord.