Here is how the advent season unfolds for us this year (2015):

week 1 (Nov 15) -Annunciation to Zachariah, the father of John the Baptist (about the birth of John, the forerunner of Christ)

week 2 (Nov 22) - Annunciation to St. Mary about the birth of our Lord (about six months after Elizabeth became pregnant)

week 3 (Nov 29) - Mary Visits Elizabeth and the Magnificat

week 4 (Dec 6) - Birth of John the Baptist

week 5 (Dec 13) - Revelation to Joseph (about the Incarnation of our Lord)

week 6 (Dec 20) - Genealogy of Jesus Christ

Dec 25 - Christmas (Yeldo) - Birth of Jesus - Merry Christmas!

One of the things that distinguishes the Syriac Orthodox Liturgy is that our liturgy is experiential. We experience events and things in our church - the important events that happened and how the redemption of fallen man was planned and carried out by God. For example, when we attend the services on Christmas Day, we experience what the shepherds experienced while sitting around the fire - the appearance of the angels proclaiming the birth of Jesus! Yes, we get to see the fire and smell the smoke at the fire pit service. It is real!

During the Liturgical Season of Advent, we walk through the great events of Christian history so as to inculcate them into our daily lives and offer their promise to the whole world. We are invited to clear away all that entangles us and open a space in our hearts, our homes, our relationships and our lives, for Love Incarnate to be born again.

Fr. Kenneth Baker, S.J. explained this well:

The word "Advent," means "coming." So during Advent we also celebrate the various comings of Jesus, the Word incarnate and God on earth. We commemorate his coming at Bethlehem two thousand years ago, his Second Coming at the end of the world, and his coming to us in time in our baptism and in the reception of his sacraments, such as the Holy Eucharist.

Advent is a time of preparation for the coming of the Lord. How do we prepare ourselves? By fervent and daily prayer, by being faithful to our commitments and state in life, by practicing acts of self-denial and fasting, by carrying our cross daily, by kindness towards others (especially members of our family), by avoiding all sarcasm and unjust criticism of others.

Like the early Christians, we should yearn for the coming of Christ. They prayed, "Come, Lord Jesus!" Now he will come to us in this Mass, offering us his body and blood in the Eucharist. Let us receive him with open hearts and dedicate ourselves to him anew. If we can do that much, we will have accomplished in some part what the Church bids us accomplish during this blessed Advent Season. "Be prepared. The Son of Man is coming at the time you least expect. Come, Lord Jesus!"

St. Bernard of Clairveaux reminded us of all the Lord's comings and what that means in our daily lives:

"We know that there are three comings of the Lord. The third lies between the other two. It is invisible while the other two are visible. In the first coming He was seen on earth, dwelling among men; in the final coming "all flesh will see the salvation of our God and they will look upon Him whom they have pierced". The intermediate coming is a hidden one; in it only the elect see the Lord within their own selves, and they are saved. In His first coming our Lord came in our flesh and our weakness; in this middle coming He comes in Spirit and in power; in the final coming he will be seen in glory and in majesty. Because this coming lies between the other two, it is like a road on which we travel from the first coming to the last."
(St. Bernard of Clairveaux)

Finally, Deacon Keith Fournier summarizes the importance of advent season for Christians:

Advent exhorts the Christian faithful to focus on a beautiful liturgical season which calls us to live in anticipation of a new beginning, a new coming of the Lord. This season of joyful preparation is also a season of great hope. If we fully enter into its celebration, we will be constantly invited to clear away all that entangles us and open a space in our hearts, our homes, our relationships and our lives, for Love Incarnate to be born again.

As my life goes on I need more than ever to hear the clarion call to "prepare the way for the Lord." I need these special times of grace. I need these holy seasons. Unlike my youth when I thought I had it all "figured out", I find something quite different has occurred as my hair has turned white (and sparse) and I continue in my journey of faith. I realize how little I actually do know. and how much more conversion I need to get ready for that coming when I will pass from one life to the next.

The liturgical seasons of the Church are an extraordinary gift and opportunity. After all, human beings are going to mark time. We will mark it either with the ordinary stuff of ordinary life or we will fill it as well with the things of God, thereby transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary. Why do we celebrate Advent? Because we need it.

Advent is a road, a way of living the Christian life and vocation, in the here and now, which enters into the eternal mysteries. We now live in that intermediate time between the first and the second comings of Jesus Christ. We are to be changed by the first and called to prepare ourselves- and the world in which we live - for the second. During this process of conversion - He continues to come to all those who make themselves ready. Happy Advent, Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus!