The surprising theology inside today’s Advent calendars

It would be easy to conclude that Advent calendars — usually with 25 compartments that reveal a treat, image or scripture, used to count down the days from Dec. 1 to Christmas Eve — represent just another way Christmas is ruined by commercialization. They’ve strayed far from their beginnings as devotional aids for 19th-century German Lutheran families.

Far from only featuring little numbered flaps to open on each December day, these calendars are now hot-ticket items. They highlight everything from beer to beard oil, and Lego to luxury silk. But have they completely lost their way?

As I pointed out recently on CBC’s The Cost of Living, I don’t believe so.

From devotional tool to consumerist gift

The first commercially printed Advent calendars, created by German publisher Gerhard Lang at the dawn of the 1900s, had paper windows that tore away to reveal Bible verses and art depicting the Nativity, the story of the birth of Jesus arising from the gospels of Luke (2:1-20) and Matthew (2:1-12).

By the mid-20th century, Advent calendars had spread to England and North America. Some versions began to include toys or chocolates and to downplay Christian themes.

Now, a full century after those first printed versions, Advent calendars have evolved into a dizzying array of “must-have” seasonal gifts that, at the top end, can include caviar, cocktails and even cut diamonds. In response, some emphasize homemade, reusable Advent calendars, while villages and neighbourhoods experiment with becoming “living” Advent calendars — local tourist draws — unveiling volunteer window displays each successive day of December.

Yet no matter how non-religious they may appear, as a scholar studying the origins of Christianity, I see ancient meanings of Advent still reflected in two characteristics of today’s calendars: a stoking of expectation and a purpose-filled sense of time.

The power of stoking expectations

Anticipation is what drives the appeal of every Advent calendar. The child’s or adult’s question — “What’s behind the next window?” — echoes the original Latin term adventus, meaning coming or arrival. To the query: “What is the world so eagerly awaiting in the season of Advent?” the church’s answer has historically been: the coming of Christ.

But it’s complicated. What even many Christians may not realize is that the coming of Christ — which the season of Advent was originally designed to mark — is the Second Coming, known as the “Parousia.”

Anticipation of this dates to the very beginning, with Paul and the first followers. The oldest complete Christian writing, 1 Thessalonians, buzzes with a kind of Advent expectation. It agonizes over Christ’s delayed return to end the march of time, abolish death and establish a new, justice-and-peace-filled reign of God over the Earth.

It’s not exactly children’s calendar material. For one thing, this Jesus was expected not as a meek and mild baby, but by at least some as a vengeful “end times” judge (2 Thessalonians 1:7-10).

In churches that still mark Advent, the readings of the first two Sundays are given over to a sense of “end times,” and “ultimate meaning” with themes of watchfulness and preparation.

Counting down to the final Window

The other ancient characteristic of even the most secular calendar is its focus on purpose-filled time and a “big day.” There would be no Advent calendar without the largest box or window, the one representing Christmas and holding the best Lego piece, chocolate, wine or picture.

When Advent first began to be marked in fourth-century Roman Gaul (modern-day France), it was meant to be a penitential season of preparation like Lent, culminating in baptism on the day of Epiphany. In the sixth century, Pope Gregory the Great shortened the season and focused it more tightly on Christmas.

Every Advent calendar, even those made with simple chalk marks in 19th-century Germany, starts with a “now,” builds energy and anticipation through a series of “not yet” days, and climaxes with a “finally” — a long-awaited Christmas Day conclusion. From the simplest hand-drawn chart to the Buy Canadian Okanagan Craft Distillery Advent Whisky Calendar, there must be a division of time building toward a climax.

Although the liturgical church year followed by mainline Christian churches, including Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans, the United Church and the Orthodox, is cyclical, the season of Advent itself is resolutely linear.

A ‘taster’ of hope and transformation

It was only after its end-of-the-world emphasis that Advent became focused on the more socially acceptable and less eschatologically embarrassing Nativity stories. But the old themes stubbornly hold on in readings from Isaiah that reflect the hopes of ancient Israelites for a day when “the wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them (Isaiah 11:6).”

Here is another family resemblance between today’s Advent calendars and the ancient Mediterranean. Some companies hype their calendars as “teasers” or “tasters” for their full product lines.

In a similar way, Advent’s ultimate goal is to act as a “taster” for a world where justice is finally done, the poor can eat their fill and peace reigns supreme.

Matthew Robert Anderson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.