BOOK: Advent – The Season of Hope

By Tish Harrison Warren | Amazon.com | 128 pages
Published in April of 2023

SUMMARY: From chocolate to Lego and everything in between Advent calendars begin filling store shelves come November. This often consumeristic celebration of Advent divorced from its 4th-century roots neglects the heavier themes of waiting, hope, darkness, light, repentance, rest, emptiness, and filling. In a world that equates December with yuletide debauchery and commercial frenzy, Tish Harrison Warren masterfully reclaims Advent as a season not of escapism, but of honest reflection and holy longing. This is no glittering holiday self-help book; it’s a profound invitation to slow down, repent, and live in the aching beauty of the “now and not yet.”

Through the liturgical calendar, she asserts, we don’t merely recount the gospel story; we are invited to enter it. Her metaphor of the church calendar as “immersive theater” is striking. It suggests a faith that is not observed from a pew but lived out in the grit and glory of daily life.

Warren reminds us that Advent isn’t just about preparing for Christmas—it’s about wrestling with the apocalyptic truth of Christ’s three comings: as a baby in Bethlehem (adventus redemptionis), as the returning King (adventus glorificamus), and as the ever-present Spirit (adventus sanctificationis). This layered perspective rescues Advent from being merely a quaint prelude to Christmas and reestablishes it as a cosmic and deeply personal story of redemption.

Warren’s reflections on the penitential nature of Advent breathe new life into a season too often drowned in syrupy sentimentality. She challenges us to dwell in the “bright sadness” of the season, to name the darkness within and around us, and to long for the light. Here lies the genius of her prose: she confronts the reader with the brutal honesty of a world “shrouded in sin, conflict, violence, and oppression” while gently guiding us toward the hope that darkness cannot overcome.

This “joy-grief” is the paradox that makes Advent so potent. Warren describes it as a time to confess, repent, and lean into the “cosmic ache” for justice, healing, and salvation. Her exploration of repentance—paired intriguingly with rest—redefines it not as a dour obligation but as an invitation to renewal.

In the latter chapters, Warren turns practical without becoming prescriptive. She offers Advent as a gift, not a burden, and encourages historically rooted practices like fasting, prayer, and giving as tools to orient our hearts toward Christ. Her approach is refreshingly non-legalistic: fasting, for instance, is described as a personal and flexible discipline, not a rigid requirement. These practices are not about achieving spiritual perfection but about stirring up love and good deeds.

Her critique of American holiday culture—its “warp speed” revelry and obsession with power or cultural capitulation (p. 80)—is razor-sharp yet not alienating. Warren invites readers to step off the treadmill of consumerism and into the stillness of waiting, offering Advent as a countercultural rhythm of deceleration and grace.

Perhaps Warren’s greatest gift is her ability to capture Advent’s essence as a mystery to be experienced rather than understood. The season’s tension—between time and eternity, presence and absence, longing and fulfillment—is something she urges us to live into, not resolve. Her writing evokes a sense of sacred wonder, a daily immersion in the “joy-grief” of the gospel’s unfolding story.

Advent is a luminous and challenging work, a book that dares readers to pause, reflect, and hope. Warren writes with theological depth and poetic clarity, drawing readers into the sacred rhythms of the liturgical calendar while refusing to gloss over the darkness of our world. This is a book that unsettles as much as it comforts, urging us to embrace the mystery and tension of waiting for Christ.

In a culture desperate for quick fixes and superficial cheer, Advent is a bracing call to deeper faith and slower living. It’s a reminder that true hope is forged not in denial, but in the raw, honest naming of our longings and fears. As Warren so eloquently puts it, Advent is not about “getting it all right” but about being shaped by love, mystery, and the startling light of Christ. It is, quite simply, a gift.

KEY QUOTE: “At Christmas we celebrate how light entered into darkness. But first, Advent bids us to pause and look, with complete honesty, at the darkness. Advent asks us to name what is dark in the world and in our own lives and to invite the light of Christ into each shadowy corner. To practice Advent is to lean into a cosmic ache: our deep, wordless desire for things to be made right. We dwell in a world shrouded in sin, conflict, violence, and oppression. Christians must be honest about the whole of life–both death and resurrection, both the darkness and the light.”

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LISTEN: Hear Harrison Warren discuss Advent and her book on Trinity Forum Conversations.

BONUS: It doesn’t take much to celebrate Advent. If you want a visual representation you can order an Advent candle pack and a candle holder. In addition, The Book of Common Prayer has guided prayers for each week of Advent.

OF NOTE: Advent is part of The Fullness of Time series in which six authors provide an introduction to a season of the church year (Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Pentecost, and Easter).

DID YOU KNOW? Sunday to Saturday has a Good Reads page where we post all of the books we have read – even the ones that didn’t make the cut.

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