Whatever happened to Advent? After Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Giving Tuesday, I discovered a need for some space from the frenzy. But it is extraordinarily hard to find it. Christmas now begins back in October, with present buying, decorations, Christmas music everywhere you go, and planning the Christmas dinner.

We are drawn inexorably onwards into the melee. And the season finishes on Christmas Day, right?

As a vicar I used to spend my time lamenting this. Advent should be Advent, not Christmas. And Christmas Day is the beginning not the end of the season.

Or is this another clear demonstration that the church is totally out of step with society? No wonder that some Advent Sunday Sermons make the most of the Bible’s message about the second coming.

It’s so tempting to say, ‘Repent! Stay awake! You never know when the world is going to end and Jesus will come again, then you’ll see!’ And secretly I would love to have added, ‘You’ll see that I was right! A bit of fire and brimstone, that’s what we need round here!’ I used to wonder if I could have a clap of thunder button installed on the lectern. In my dreams...

Advent, though, is not about playing on people’s fears about the end of the world and the destruction of everything.

That’s hardly the good news we need to hear, even if it comes uncomfortably close at times to reality. And while Advent, traditionally kept, is designed to give us space to watch and wait and reflect on deep questions, and is a wonderful gift in a frenetic society, that’s not the whole story.

It’s got more to do with hope and encouragement in the face of great suffering: hang in there, your God is coming, every tear will be wiped away, every hurt healed, peace will come and justice will be done.

That might seem like a pipe dream, but for people of faith it’s key to the well-being of humanity and how we live now. Advent is not a season of fear and foreboding but of hope and rejoicing.

Thinking about Advent in terms of the second coming of Christ and the end of the world either brings you out in a cold sweat, or joyful hope. Or maybe complete bafflement.

Whatever we think about it (if we think about it at all) it’s still a great opportunity to think differently about how we live and whether we tread gently on other people’s lives. It’s a call to nurture expectation of an end to poverty, injustice, greed, war, and all that seems to be falling apart in our lives and the life of the world.

God is coming because he loves the world so much. In this great county of Oxfordshire there are well over 300 churches open now and offering you space this Advent to pause and reflect. Do visit your local and soak up the peace.