What is Advent? The meaning, the dates and the candles
Four Sundays of waiting before Christmas, starting Sunday, November 29. What the season means, where the wreath and the calendar came from, and a simple way to pray through it.
The MySavior teamUpdated · 9 min read
“Comfort, comfort My people,” says your God.
Isaiah 40:1 · BSB
If only You would rend the heavens and come down, so that mountains would quake at Your presence,
Isaiah 64:1 · BSB
Advent is the season of the four Sundays before Christmas, when Christians prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus and look ahead to his promised return. In 2026 it begins on Sunday, November 29, and it ends on Christmas Eve, Thursday, December 24.
It is the quietest season of the Christian year, and maybe the most honest. Most of December pulls us straight toward the party. Advent asks us to wait a little first: to light one candle, then two, and to admit that the world still needs the light we are waiting for.
What the season is
Advent means “coming”
The name comes from the Latin adventus, “coming” or “arrival.” The season looks two ways at once. It prepares us to celebrate Christ’s first coming, as a child in Bethlehem, and it points to his second coming at the end of time. The Sunday readings move in that order, from the end of time toward the manger.
Advent also opens the church year. In the Western churches the first Sunday of Advent is a kind of New Year’s Day, when the cycle of readings starts over and the story of Christ is told again from the beginning.
The dates
When Advent begins in 2026 and 2027
Advent starts on the fourth Sunday before Christmas, which is always the Sunday nearest November 30. It can fall anywhere from November 27 to December 3, so the season lasts between 22 and 28 days.
In 2026 the first Sunday of Advent is November 29. The other Sundays are December 6, December 13 and December 20. Christmas falls on a Friday, so Advent lasts 26 days and the fourth week is only 5 days long. In 2027, Advent begins on Sunday, November 28. For the next ten years at a glance, see when Advent starts.
One exception: Milan and the Ambrosian Rite keep six Sundays of Advent instead of four.
A ring of evergreen
The Advent wreath and its candles
The wreath began in Hamburg in 1839. Johann Hinrich Wichern, a Lutheran pastor, ran a home for poor children called the Rauhes Haus, and the children kept asking whether Christmas had come yet. So he fixed candles to an old cartwheel, a small red one for each weekday of Advent and a large white one for each Sunday, and lit one more every day. German Catholics took up the custom in the 1920s, and it reached North America in the 1930s.
Most wreaths now keep only the four Sunday candles, three violet and one rose, and light one more each Sunday, so the light grows as Christmas comes closer. Many churches name them hope, peace, joy and love; others name them for the prophets, Bethlehem, the shepherds and the angels. Some wreaths add a white Christ candle in the middle, lit on Christmas Eve.
First Sunday · A cry for God to come
Isaiah 64:1
If only You would rend the heavens and come down, so that mountains would quake at Your presence,
Isaiah 64:1 · BSB
This is the prayer of a people looking at ruins, their cities a wilderness and their temple burned (Isaiah 64:10–11). It is not a polite request but a plea for God to tear the sky open. Many churches read it on November 29. It is a good place to start, because Advent begins with honesty. Before we sing about the Child, we admit how much we need him.
First Sunday · The Gospel
Mark 13:33
Be on your guard and stay alert! For you do not know when the appointed time will come.
Mark 13:33 · BSB
The same Sunday, Catholic and many Protestant churches hear this warning from Jesus. It is not meant to frighten. It is the posture of the whole season: awake, attentive, ready for a guest who could knock at any hour.
Second Sunday · Make a road
Isaiah 40:3
A voice of one calling: “Prepare the way for the LORD in the wilderness; make a straight highway for our God in the desert.
Isaiah 40:3 · BSB
On December 6, John the Baptist arrives. Churches read Isaiah 40 alongside the opening of Mark’s Gospel, which quotes this very verse. The words first comforted exiles in Babylon: God himself was coming to lead them home across the desert, and the road had to be made ready.
John applied it to hearts. Preparing the way still looks like what he preached: turning around, making things right, clearing out whatever stands in the way.
Twenty-four little doors
Where Advent calendars came from
Advent calendars began with German Lutheran families in the nineteenth century, as homemade ways to help children count the days to Christmas: a chalk mark on the door, a candle, a picture a day. The first printed one is usually credited to Gerhard Lang, a Munich printer, and dated to 1908. Early printed calendars often hid a Bible verse behind each cardboard door; the chocolate came much later.
Most calendars run from December 1 to 24, so strictly they count down to Christmas rather than through Advent. Still, a calendar that opens onto a verse, a picture of the Nativity or a small act of kindness does what Wichern’s cartwheel did: it makes the waiting visible.
Third Sunday · Why one candle is rose
Philippians 4:4–5
Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be apparent to all. The Lord is near.
Philippians 4:4–5 · BSB
The third Sunday is Gaudete Sunday, named for the first word of its Latin entrance chant, taken from this passage: Gaudete, “Rejoice.” Advent is more than half over, and the Church lets the waiting brighten for a day, with the rose candle on the wreath and rose vestments in many churches. In 2026 Gaudete Sunday falls on December 13, which is also Saint Lucy’s Day.
Paul wrote these words in chains. His joy did not wait for his circumstances to change. Knowing that the Lord was near was enough.
Fasts, saints and processions
How Christians keep Advent around the world
Advent was once a fast. In the fifth century, Bishop Perpetuus of Tours asked his people to fast three days a week from the day after Saint Martin’s Day, November 11, until Christmas, and the season was long called Saint Martin’s Lent. Orthodox Christians still keep a forty-day Nativity Fast. In the West the fasting has faded, but the color stayed: violet, for waiting and repentance, or a deep blue in many Lutheran and Methodist churches.
In Germany and elsewhere in Europe, children set out their shoes on the eve of Saint Nicholas Day, December 6, and find small treats in them in the morning. In Sweden, Saint Lucy’s Day on December 13 brings processions led by a girl in white with a crown of candles. In Mexico, Las Posadas fills the nine nights from December 16 to 24 with processions that go door to door asking for shelter, as Mary and Joseph did. In the Philippines, Simbang Gabi gathers parishes for nine Masses before Christmas, traditionally at dawn. And from December 17 to 23, the Church’s evening prayer sings the seven “O Antiphons,” the old verses behind the hymn “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.”
Fourth Sunday · Making room
Luke 1:38
“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May it happen to me according to your word.” Then the angel left her.
Luke 1:38 · BSB
On December 20, the waiting turns personal. The Gospel is the angel Gabriel’s visit to a young woman in Nazareth (Luke 1:26–38), and her answer holds the whole season in one sentence. Mary did not understand everything she was told; she asked how it could be. Then she said yes, and made room.
The last crowded days before Christmas ask the same of us: not a perfect house or a finished list, but a heart willing to receive him.
On your iPhone
Count the days on purpose
Counting down is half of Advent, and your phone can help. MySavior’s Christian Countdown widget counts the days to 30 feasts of the Christian year on your Home Screen or Lock Screen, like the phone below. Choose Advent as its event, or leave it on Auto and it moves on by itself after November 29: to the Immaculate Conception on December 8, then to Christmas.
It is a small thing. But a number glanced at between messages can turn into a short prayer: so many days left to get ready.
Sunday, November 8
9:41
Count down to Advent on your Lock ScreenMySavior’s Christian Countdown keeps Advent and Christmas in view, among 30 feasts of the Christian year.
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The shortest Advent prayer
Revelation 22:20
He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!
Revelation 22:20 · BSB
The Bible ends in Advent. In its closing lines Christ promises to come soon, and John answers with a prayer three words long: the prayer of the whole season.
Paul kept the same plea in Aramaic, Maranatha, which the BSB renders “Come, O Lord!” (1 Corinthians 16:22). He left it untranslated for his Greek-speaking readers, a sign of how early Christians were praying it. You can pray it at a red light.
For each Sunday
A prayer to say as you light the candle
Lord Jesus, you came once in the dark of Bethlehem, and you will come again in glory. As we light this candle, give us hope while we wait, peace in the crowded days, joy that does not depend on how December goes, and love that makes room for you and for others. Come, Lord Jesus. Amen.
Say it each Sunday at the wreath, with one more candle lit each week. It follows the four names many churches give the candles: hope, peace, joy and love.
A simple way to pray through the four weeks
Choose one quiet moment each Sunday, at dinner or before bed. Light the candles, read the week’s passage, say the prayer above, and pick one small thing to do before next Sunday.
- Week 1, November 29: hope. Read Isaiah 64:1. Name one thing you are waiting for God to mend, in the world or in your own life, and pray for it every day.
- Week 2, December 6: peace. Read Isaiah 40:3. Clear one obstacle: make the phone call, ask the forgiveness, put down the habit.
- Week 3, December 13: joy. Read Philippians 4:4–5. Write down three good gifts from this year and thank God for each one.
- Week 4, December 20: love. Read Luke 1:26–38, the angel’s visit to Mary. Do one hidden kindness for someone who will not expect it.
On Christmas Eve, light every candle, and the white one in the middle if you have it. The waiting is over.
Keep Advent in view all four weeks
Bible verse and prayer widgets you design yourself, a countdown to the feasts of the year, and a saint for every day.
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Questions
When does Advent start in 2026?
Advent 2026 begins on Sunday, November 29, 2026, and ends on Christmas Eve, Thursday, December 24. In 2027 it begins on Sunday, November 28. The first Sunday of Advent is always the fourth Sunday before Christmas, between November 27 and December 3.
What do the four Advent candles mean?
Many churches name them hope, peace, joy and love; another tradition names them for the prophets, Bethlehem, the shepherds and the angels. Three are usually violet and one rose, lit on the third Sunday, Gaudete Sunday. A white Christ candle in the center, if there is one, is lit on Christmas Eve.
Why is the Advent color purple?
Violet, a sign of waiting and repentance, has been the usual Western color for Advent since about the thirteenth century. Catholics keep violet; many Lutheran, Methodist and Presbyterian churches use blue.
Is Advent like Lent?
Both are violet seasons of preparation, and Advent was once a fast too. But Advent is shorter and gentler: its mood is expectation more than penance, and it ends at the manger rather than the cross.
Which Bible translation is quoted here?
Every verse in this article is quoted from the Berean Standard Bible (BSB).
