Georgina Graham, Operations Manager for the Archdeaconry of London, reflects on Advent as more than a countdown to Christmas. She contrasts chronos—linear time—with kairos—God’s opportune moment—and urges us to pause amid life’s pressures. Advent calls for intentional love, hospitality, and courage to build bridges, embrace belonging, and counter fear and division.
“Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel”
Isaiah 7:14
We are one month from Christmas Eve and the clock ticks on towards Christmas! It is so easy to get caught up in the superficiality of a sparkling, gift-laden Christmas that we might forget shall we say, the true reason for the season. And not just Christmas day itself, but what precedes it – the season of Advent – not just the coming of Jesus as a baby, but also of the future coming of Jesus. The first Sunday in Advent is also the beginning of the Western Church’s liturgical year. So much of this speaks to ‘time’, but time in very different ways.
When we think of time, it is often because it feels that there is so much to do and so little time in which to get it done! The shopping, the cleaning, the washing, the gift wrapping, writing that dissertation, visiting loved ones, catching the last post – all tasks that we mark time by and with. This steers us into a very linear view of time – the Ancient Greek word chronos comes to mind – denoting a very linear passage of time, marked by seconds, hours, days, years and so on. Chronos is about the here and now, but the Ancient Greeks also had another word for time, Kairos, which speaks to the opportune, or the right time and the quality of the moment.
Recognising Kairos in our lives
Surely the birth of Jesus, preceded by Mary and Joseph’s journey to Bethlehem – a journey precipitated by the call of the secular leader, Emperor Caesar Augustus, for everyone to be registered in their ancestral town – was the culmination of a ‘chronos’ and ‘kairos’ moment. Chronos because the Emperor’s decree had to be met by a certain time and happen in a certain place, but Kairos because it was in God’s divine time the opportune moment for Jesus’s incarnation, of God with us – Immanuel.
It can be challenging to recognise Kairos moments in our lives. We need to be watchful, but the crisis upon crisis we lurch from can singularly focus our eyes on the here and now and how we might survive the misfortunes we face, how we might escape our overwhelm and anxiety and rise up for air to finally exhale. Our own painful experiences and fears can make us more focused on self and less able to see the injustices that others may face. We may suffer from compassion-fatigue, there is just too much going on in the world to try to make a difference. When we feel we are clinging on for dear life just to survive each day, each pay packet that doesn’t cover the bills, each doctor’s appointment that doesn’t diagnose but delays, each argument with a loved one that does not get resolved, each job application that does not get an interview, we can become myopic about other people’s problems or even seek escapism from our own. The tinsel and the trappings can become a substitute for compassion and action.
Yet we are reminded of the words of the Theologian, Frederick Buechner:
Compassion is sometimes the fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside somebody else’s skin. It is the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you too.
So yes, all the problems we face are not to be minimised, but there is no peace and joy for us as individuals until there is peace and joy for us all. Many media and political narratives fuel our fears and encourage us to build walls where we need bridges, and to separate not connect, to ostracise and blame – and we must counter these narratives as we know that God is with US, us all – not just those who look like us, or sound like us or live like us.
Listening and connecting through stories
Can we take some time this Advent and Christmas season to listen to other people’s stories, to connect with those who we might normally overlook? One of my favourite theologians, Walter Brueggemann, died this year in June aged 92 (that chronos thing again!) He wrote:
The deep places in our lives – places of resistance and embrace – are reached only by stories, by images, metaphors and phrases that line out the world differently, apart from our fear and hurt.
Start a conversation – this season gives you a reason, no one will think you’re weird! Share meals, and fellowship, share gifts and time – do these things with people other than those you normally would.
Advent reminds us of watching and waiting – the very same things we must do to recognise the opportune time, the Kairos moment that is now, to act intentionally in a way that changes things for the better – actions that substitute othering with belonging, actions that embrace not reject. We are called to care for the refugee and show hospitality to the foreigner, as we read in Hebrews, you might be entertaining angels.
Prayer for Justice and Peace
God of all creation, you call us to be one body, united in love and justice,
Soften our hearts, Lord, that we may listen before we speak,
That we may see shared humanity in those the world has othered.
That we may use our words to bring harmony, not division
That we may we sow hope not hatred
Give us the courage, Lord, to seize this moment,
To call out injustice, to break down walls, to build bridges and cross divides.
Lord for those who are alone, who are suffering, who are afraid,
We ask for your healing love to flow to and through us all.
We remember those whose homes and lives
have been devastated by Hurricane Melissa and other natural disasters.
Prince of Peace
In the midst of chaos and fear,
Calm the storms within us and around us.
We pray too, Lord God, for the young people kidnapped in Nigeria
That they may soon be returned safely home.
Loving God, as we approach this season of Advent and Christmas,
when we remember all those who played a part in the birth of Jesus,
may we also remember their joy, their eagerness, perseverance and obedience.
May we be so inspired and empowered to be the light in a world of darkness,
so that we too can face into the darkness of racism and injustice
and bring light to the structures that permit and promote it
and to those who thrive by fostering fear and hatred.
Living God
Deliver us from a world without justice
And a future without mercy.
In your mercy, establish justice,
And in your justice, remember the mercy
Revealed to us in Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Amen.