The world rushes forward, lighting up screens and decking out storefronts in a mad sprint toward the next thing, but Advent pulls us back.
Is it possible that there is a God, and he doesn't want us to be modern? Yes, it's possible. Look around—at the glass towers, the blue-lit rectangles in every hand, the lifeless procession of prepackaged meals and prefab houses—and tell me this is the life a Creator dreamed up when he spoke the world into existence. Sometimes, it feels more like a cosmic prank, a bad joke on a late-night talk show.
But Advent invites us to sit with the question, not just over a double espresso in some hipster café, but deep in its marrow. Strip off the slogans, the TED Talk buzzwords, the smug superiority of modern progress, and ask yourself: Could it be that the God who fashioned galaxies, who planted rivers and orchards, doesn't care about our Wi-Fi speeds or our next "disruptive innovation"? Maybe he's watching all this with the weary gaze of a father whose kid just scribbled crayon over the Mona Lisa.
Modernity is that slick, relentless salesman pitching "new" for the sake of new—no soul, no substance, just shiny upgrades that leave you emptier than before. It tells us the old ways are dead weight, that we've evolved beyond gardens, altars, and whatever those "superstitious" ancients were about. Modernity's gospel is progress: smarter tech, faster everything, and the promise that utopia is always just one breakthrough away. But the fine print—what nobody likes to admit—is that we've traded meaning for convenience, belonging for isolation, and wonder for the cheap glow of an LED screen.
That's why the Bible, that ancient and unruly book, crashes in like an unwelcome dinner guest to call us out. Its story doesn't align with the modern hustle. In fact, it feels like a slap in the face. God didn't create a city with its systems and skyscrapers; he planted a garden—a wild, abundant thing where humanity's first task wasn't coding or scaling up but tending and keeping. "Tend and keep" sounds quaint now, doesn't it? It sounds like something you'd put on a greeting card for farmers. But that's where it started: reverence for what was already given.
And then we blew it. The first humans weren't content to live in harmony with creation; they reached for knowledge they weren't ready for, knowledge that wasn't theirs to take. Modernity's seed was planted there—in that act of hubris, that grasping for control. Fast forward a few chapters and humanity is building a tower to touch the heavens, patting themselves on the back for their ingenuity. God's response? Scattering their languages, scattering their unity. It's almost like he was saying, "This is not the way."
Modernity's gospel is progress: smarter tech, faster everything, and the promise that utopia is always just one breakthrough away.
But we keep building. Babel's cranes are still swinging. We erect our own towers—skyscrapers, algorithms, empires of glass and steel—thinking if we just pile it high enough, we'll find meaning at the top. Yet the higher we go, the further we seem from the ground, from the dirt where life actually happens.
And then there's Jesus. His arrival doesn't just complicate the modern story—it upends it entirely. He didn't show up as a tech disruptor or a philosopher-king. He wasn't here to pitch solutions or roll out the next iMessiah update. He wandered dusty roads, broke bread with outcasts, and talked about mustard seeds and fig trees, of kingdoms not of this world. It's like he didn't even read the modernity memo.
His big move—the ultimate anti-modern gesture—wasn't to build something new but to give himself up, to let his body be broken like bread, to let his blood flow like wine. This wasn't innovation; this was sacrifice. And the modern mind doesn't know what to do with sacrifice because it doesn't compute in a world driven by profit margins and ROI.
Advent is a season to stop, to kneel, to remember. The world rushes forward, lighting up screens and decking out storefronts in a mad sprint toward the next thing, but Advent pulls us back. It's a time of waiting—not passive, restless waiting, but holy anticipation. It's the season when the Church whispers the unthinkable: slow down, step off the treadmill, remember who you are. Look not to the towers of progress but to the dirt-floor stable, not to the self-made man but to the God-made child.
Modernity isn't just wrong; it's boring. It's too clean, too clinical, too detached from the dirt and blood and sweat of real life. God didn't wire us for this. He wired us for gardens, for the kind of work that gets your hands dirty and your soul clean. He wired us for tables laden with food, shared with neighbors, not for microwaved trays eaten alone.
But modernity hums its hypnotic tune: consume, produce, repeat. It's not progress; it's a hamster wheel. And if there is a God—and deep down, we know there is—then maybe he's not impressed with our shiny new idols. Perhaps he's waiting for us to stop chasing the ghost of "progress" and start remembering who we are. Maybe he wants us to unplug, to kneel in the dirt, to look up at the stars like Abraham did and remember that we are small, that we are dependent, that we are loved.
This doesn't necessarily mean rejecting modern tools altogether, but it does mean rejecting the modern spirit—the spirit that places human ingenuity above divine wisdom, the spirit that prioritizes consumption over stewardship, the spirit that confuses progress with goodness. It means asking hard questions about how we live and why. Does our technology serve life, or does it enslave us? Do our systems promote justice and mercy, or do they deepen inequality? Do our hearts, amid all this noise, remain open to the calm, gentle voice of God?
Advent asks us to leave the spirit of modernity behind and prepare the way for something much older and much truer. It invites us into the wilderness, into the garden, into the dirt-floor stable where eternity took its first human breath.
