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"Jesus is the reason for the season," many evangelical Protestant Christians are fond of saying this time of year. But what season, exactly? For some of us, it's the most dissonant time of the year. With kids jingle-belling and everyone telling you, "Be of good cheer," it's odd for some of us to go to church and be reminded that for the past 1,700 years or so, the church has treated the period between late November and late December as a period of solemnity rather than celebration, of fasting rather than feasting.

"As members of the fast-food generation, we have become so eager to get to Christmas that we bypass Advent," Stanley Grenz lamented in a 1999 Christianity Today article. That means bypassing much of the real Christmas celebration, he said. "We cannot truly sing 'Joy to the World' unless we have thoroughly rehearsed 'O Come, O Come Emmanuel.'"

But even eager observers of Advent don't get too militant in being liturgically correct, and the curmudgeons among us can always grumble about the "December dilemma": the annual debates on recognition of Christmas in the public square. Last year's debate over a Menorah and Nativity display in Palm Beach, Florida, continued well into May. Denver seems to be this year's contention capital, though Australian fast-food joints have had their issues, too.

But if Christmas does become increasingly secularized, one wonders if blowback might take the place in a resurgence of Advent observance (and with it, a new embrace of the Christian calendar).

There are signs of this already. It's to be expected among "ancient/future" evangelicals, "emergent" types, and other members of groups where liturgy and tradition is making a comeback.

Less expected, perhaps, are Southern Baptist leaders who are bringing Advent to their nonliturgical churches.

"Preaching during the Christmas season can be difficult," one such enthusiast, Craig Loscalzo (pastor of Immanuel Baptist Church in Lexington, Kentucky), wrote in InterVarsity Press's The Online Pulpit in 1996. "It's hard to preach creatively to break through the expectations of the season so your hearers can hear the gospel anew. Maybe using the Lectionary to preach through Advent this year will help. Who knows, we might even meet Immanuel again ourselves!" (MP3s of Loscalzo's Advent sermons, and others, are here.)

Lifeway, the Southern Baptist publishing arm, has several resources for Advent, and Calvin Miller, a professor in preaching and pastoral ministry at Samford University's Beeson Divinity School, recently wrote a book of Advent readings. "Southern Baptists came very late to Advent," he toldChristianity Today in 2002. "But now, since this new Advent book has come out, there must be a thousand Southern Baptist churches using it. The thing that's kind of amazing to me is that many of these churches probably could hardly spell Advent ten years ago."

Other Baptists, too, are enthusiastically embracing the season, and perhaps many more will in the future. Robert Webber, author of the Ancient-Future book series, is training pastors as Director of M.A. in Worship and Spirituality at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary. His latest book, Ancient-Future Time, is an enthusiastic call to live by the church year, beginning with Advent.

"Advent is the time when God breaks in on us with new surprises and touches us with a renewing and restoring power," he writes. "Our parents in the faith have chosen Scripture that accent three Advents: The Advent of Christ coming into our own lives, the Advent of Christ's physical birth in Bethlehem, and the Advent of his second coming at the end of history."

In fact, one might think that the recent resurgence of interest in eschatology, partially driven by the success of the Left Behind novels, might pique some Christians' interest in a season emphasizing Jesus' return.

In fact, many pastors may be preaching Advent sermons without their congregations being fully aware of it. Take, for instance, the Christmas sermons of Ray Stedman, longtime pastor of the independent Peninsula Bible Church in Palo Alto, California. He couldn't preach the first few chapters of any gospel without preaching the last few chapters of Revelation. Christmas, one sermon concluded, "is the beginning of the great process that shall end in the perfect harmony of all creation."

So some may be attracted to the theology of Advent, and others to the history of it. If you're one of the latter, be sure to read Christian History & Biography's several articles on the season, including how Advent season came to be, and "free-ranging revivalist" Chris Armstrong's celebration of "the sustaining power of liturgical observance." But other Christians may be attracted to how observing Advent is a countercultural experience. While only the Eastern Orthodox are still obligated to fast during this period (it's actually a 40-day "Winter Lent," beginning November 15), Western "Adventists" still view it as a time for repentance. Christians who find Christmas too commercial, too rushed, and too selfish will find joining with others in observing Advent to be a welcome respite.

But that doesn't mean those who strictly observe Advent have to turn down Christmas party invitations and scowl through December. The church calendar includes its own seasonal celebrations. Most notably, the third Sunday in Advent, Rose Sunday, focuses on joy.

And while Advent certainly doesn't offer the panoply of songs that Christmas does, there's no even need to turn off "Jolly Old St. Nicholas": December 6 is recognized as St. Nicholas of Myra Day in both Eastern and Western churches—though Nick has changed quite a bit since he was reportedly persecuted under Diocletian in the early fourth century.

Nevertheless, it's hard not to feel some dissonance between these two seasons. Purple, the color of Advent, usually clashes with red and green.

Ted Olsen is online managing editor of Christianity Today, and writes the magazine's daily Weblog.