What Is Advent? Meaning, the Four Weeks, and What to Read

What the word means

Advent comes from the Latin adventus, a translation of the Greek parousia — the word the New Testament uses for Christ's coming. That double meaning shapes the whole season. Advent remembers the first coming, when Jesus was born in Bethlehem, and it anticipates a second one: the Bible's last prayer is "Yes, come, Lord Jesus" (Revelation 22:20).

So Advent is not simply an early start on Christmas. Its mood is closer to waiting in the dark for morning, the image Psalm 130 uses: "My soul longs for the Lord more than watchmen long for the morning" (Psalm 130:6). Christmas is the answer; Advent is the time spent with the question.

When Advent starts (2026 dates)

Advent begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas Day, so its length changes from year to year, between 22 and 28 days. In 2026, Christmas falls on a Friday, which puts the four Sundays on these dates:

The four candles

The Advent wreath — an evergreen circle with four candles, often with a fifth white candle in the center for Christmas — is a relatively recent custom, popularized in nineteenth-century Germany. One more candle is lit each Sunday, so the light grows as Christmas gets closer, echoing Isaiah 9:2: "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light."

Churches name the candles differently. Hope, peace, joy and love is the most widespread scheme in Protestant churches; others use prophecy, Bethlehem, the shepherds and the angels. In many traditions three candles are purple and the third is pink, marking Gaudete ("rejoice") Sunday at the season's midpoint. None of these schemes comes from the Bible itself, so use whichever your church or family already does.

What to read during Advent

Traditional Advent readings fall into three groups, and a good plan moves through them in order:

• Promise. The early hints of a coming rescuer — Genesis 3:15, the promise to Abraham in Genesis 12, and the prophets: Isaiah 9:6 ("a child is born to us"), Isaiah 11, and Micah 5:2, which names Bethlehem.
• Preparation. John the Baptist, the "voice of one who calls out" from Isaiah 40:3, and the call in Romans 13:12 to wake up because "the night is far gone, and the day is near."
• Arrival. The birth narratives in Luke 1–2 and Matthew 1–2, ending with John 1:14: "The Word became flesh and lived among us."

A simple way to keep Advent

Keep the daily part small. Five minutes a day kept from December 1 to Christmas does more than an ambitious devotional abandoned by the second week. The Advent: 25 Days to Christmas plan follows exactly the promise–preparation–arrival shape above, one short passage a day, and it runs on calendar dates so it starts on December 1 every year regardless of when the first Sunday falls.

On Sundays, light the candle and read a slightly longer passage, then pray. A short Advent prayer works well at the wreath or before the day's reading. With children, let them light the candle and read one verse each; reading the Bible with kids has more ideas for keeping it short and participatory.

If you want one book to sit with through the season, read Luke: chapters 1 and 2 are the fullest account of the birth, and the Gospels in 30 days plan picks up naturally in January. For the prophetic readings, a little background goes a long way — see how to read the Old Testament prophets.

Advent when it is hard to wait

Advent was shaped by people who had waited a long time — through exile, occupation and centuries of silence between the prophets and John the Baptist. It makes room for the parts of December that aren't festive. If the season finds you grieving or worn out, the Psalms of waiting (Psalms 13, 40 and 130) belong to Advent as much as the carols do, and Bible verses about hope gathers more of them.