It is God who is love, sent to us in Jesus. Throughout time, God's coming has been heralded by messengers. The prophet Malachi looked ahead to a time when a messenger was coming to prepare the way for the coming of God. John the Baptizer was identified by the Gospel writers as the one anticipated by the prophet, the voice crying in the wilderness to prepare the way of the Lord. The voice and cry come to us in Advent.
Advent is a set-apart time for preparation.
The fourth century, in which the Christian calendar took its basic form, was the beginning of a new era for the Christian church. For over three hundred years the Christian church had been persecuted by the Roman authorities. That ended with the Edict of Toleration in the year 311, when the Emperor Constantine I turned the persecuted church into the tolerated church and later into the favored church. Within a hundred years the number of professed Christians jumped dramatically. Whereas Christian leaders had focused for almost three hundred years on preparing Christians for persecution and martyrdom, they soon were faced with the prospect of the church being overwhelmed by people who had little or no idea of what Christianity was.