This book is going to be key to me "taking back Christmas" this year. The past few years, I have been on a mission, a mission to "take back Christmas" from the overly merchandising of the season, the rushrushrush and less than jolly and Holy feelings that I have been prey to as an adult during the Christmas season.

This book kind of pointed out to me that I was looking at Christmas, specifically the season leading up to it, Advent, all wrong. Christmas is Christmas eve and the day itself. Leading up to it, Advent, is a solemn time, to look without flinching at the darkness in life and the glory and hope of the Second Coming, not just the first.

Let me tell you, this book TOUCHED me. It SPOKE to me. I am not from the "flavor" of Christianity that this author is, but if my brand decides to cross over a non-negotiable line for me, I am switching over to this one! THAT is how much this book spoke to me. I'm not converting, but I would be willing to under the right, or wrong depends on how you look at it, circumstances.

This is basically a book of sermons. Sounds dry, dusty and sooooo boring, right? WRONG! These sermons were alive, vital and each made me think and want to keep on reading. I would LOVE to hear this author preach.

I really liked the set up of the book, especially the footnotes. Sigh, footnotes are a dying breed. I especially like them in an eBook, because with regular notes, it is more of a pain to flip to the back to read them and then flip back to where I left off. It's harder for me at any rate. Footnotes put the notes right where it is easiest to read them. LOVE IT!

I also really liked how the title of the sermon, as well as the location and when it was given are included at the beginning of the sermon, as well as background information, such as for a pastor's ordination, or the week after 9/11.

Also, may I add/complain, that she footnoted some really interesting sounding books, so my TBR Mountain has grown. Great, but also frustrating, because no time to read as it is!

This book was fascinating and completely the right book at the right time for me. I have ordered copies for my store and plan to buy two of them. One for me and one for my church library. I discussed it with my church's Christian Ed Committee co-chair and hope to see Advent as a theme in Adult Ed in the future.

Recommended for all who have lost the "Christmas spirit" and who want to know more about the waiting period before Christmas. 5, HUGE hope-filled, stars. I can't recommend this enough!

My thanks to NetGalley and Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company for an eARC copy of this book to read and review.

I have had a bit of a hard time reviewing this book because it was only available in an Adobe DRM protected form and not in Kindle, and my tablet would not allow me to log on to Netgalley's site for over a month due to a certificate problem. Even if I had the chance to have the full fifty days to review it properly I am not sure I could have done it justice; even the author states in his introduction "Relatively few people will want to read everything at once, or even in the sequence here presented..." This is a book in which each sermon/essay needs to be thoughtfully read and then digested for a day or two; there are very deep thoughts here which cannot be skimmed over as in some other Advent books which contain short, peppy Bible verses or brief spiritual lines about preparing for the infant Prince of Peace.

In fact, Fleming Rutledge eschews the infant child for the liturgical meaning of Advent, which is in preparation not for the child in the manger, but for the Second Coming of Christ, and even talks about the growing movement to make Advent once again a 40-day period like Lent, as it used to be, and a season of fasting and repentance. He references Biblical texts about the prophet Elijah and the "odd representative" of Christ who is John the Baptist, as well as the parable of the wise and the foolish virgins, and paralleling those texts with current events at the time: Sandy Hook murders, 9/11, massacres of missionaries in foreign countries, as well as the plight of the homeless and the hungry, child abuse, and the other horrors that mar our modern life. He discusses why Christmas does not enter the church until Christmas Eve (despite what he calls "Christmas creep") and why this is as it should be, that angels are not pretty but AWEsome in the original meaning of the word (there is a reason that when they appear to the shepherds they declare "Fear not!"), nor is the darkness that comes in Advent cozy and welcoming, but something to be respected and feared.

For those who have the luxury of time to spend with this volume will be richly rewarded with much "food for thought."

A must read examination of Advent that is destined to become a classic of Christian literature and equally essential regardless of denomination.