Advent without Scripture collapses into sentiment: four Sundays, four readings
The four Advent dates for 2026, a four-candle reading set, the Revised Common Lectionary Year B readings beside it, the hymn copyright test, and notes for the people reading aloud.
Updated
The world starts Christmas in October and finishes it on the 26th of December. The church runs the opposite way. It waits four weeks, on purpose, for the coming of Christ in history, in Word and sacrament now, and in glory at the end of the age, and then it keeps feasting for twelve days after everyone else has taken the tree down.
Four weeks is enough to teach a congregation that hope, peace, joy, and love are fruits of a promise God made long before anyone hung an ornament. Four weeks is also enough to fill with candle ceremonies, children’s crafts, and readings chosen for their mood. Read the prophets instead.
The dates you are planning around
Advent begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas Day, so the dates move every year. For 2026 they are fixed and worth putting in the calendar now.
| Sunday | Date | Candle theme |
|---|---|---|
| Advent 1 | Sunday 29 November 2026 | Hope |
| Advent 2 | Sunday 6 December 2026 | Peace |
| Advent 3 | Sunday 13 December 2026 | Joy |
| Advent 4 | Sunday 20 December 2026 | Love |
| Christmas Day | Friday 25 December 2026 | Christ candle |
Those dates come from the Calendar of the Christian Year published by The Lectionary Page. Christmas Day falls on a Friday in 2026, which means Advent 4 sits five days before it and the Sunday after Christmas lands on 27 December. Decide in September whether you are holding a Christmas Eve service, a Christmas Day service, or both, because the volunteer schedule for that week is the hardest one of the year.
The four candle themes are a widespread convention rather than a rule anyone published. Name the theme once and spend the rest of the time on the reading.
A four-week set for a church that does not use a lectionary
Each of these carries its own weight read aloud, without a homily to rescue it.
- Week 1, Isaiah 9:2-7. Hope, and the child born to rule.
- Week 2, Isaiah 11:1-10. Peace, and the shoot from the stump of Jesse.
- Week 3, Luke 1:46-55. Joy, and Mary’s Magnificat.
- Week 4, Matthew 1:18-25. Love, and the naming of Jesus.
Pair each reading with a congregational hymn that confesses the same truth. Week one takes “Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus” well. Week two suits “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming,” which is about the stump in Isaiah 11 and nothing else. Week three invites a metrical Magnificat from your hymnal. Let the music restate the exegesis rather than compete with it.
The lectionary readings for the same four Sundays
The liturgical year beginning 29 November 2026 is Year B in the three-year cycle. The Revised Common Lectionary was assembled by the North American Consultation on Common Texts with the International English Language Liturgical Consultation, trialed in 1983 and published in final form in 1992. If your congregation follows it, or if you want to know what most of the churches in your town are hearing on the same morning, these are the four sets.
| Sunday | Old Testament | Psalm | Epistle | Gospel |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Advent 1 | Isaiah 64:1-9 | Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18 | 1 Corinthians 1:3-9 | Mark 13:24-37 |
| Advent 2 | Isaiah 40:1-11 | Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13 | 2 Peter 3:8-15a | Mark 1:1-8 |
| Advent 3 | Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11 | Psalm 126 or Canticle 15 | 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24 | John 1:6-8, 19-28 |
| Advent 4 | 2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16 | Canticle 3 or 15, or Psalm 89:1-4, 19-26 | Romans 16:25-27 | Luke 1:26-38 |
The dates, the themes, both reading sets, and the blank the households go in belong on one sheet.
Notice what Year B does on the first Sunday. The Gospel is Mark 13, the little apocalypse, the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power. Advent opens on the second coming and works backward to the manger, which is the correct order and the one every retail calendar reverses. A church that starts Advent with a nativity scene has skipped the reason for the waiting.
Preaching and reading through the four weeks
Week 1, hope in a land of deep darkness. Isaiah 9 opens with people walking in darkness who have seen a great light. That is pastoral language for every age that trusts politics, portfolios, or personal improvement to save it. Read the full passage aloud. Name the specific oppressions Isaiah addresses instead of flattening them into generic brokenness. The promise is a child: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Week 2, peace and the Spirit’s rest. Isaiah 11 describes a stump that still bears a shoot. Israel’s monarchy looked finished and God was not. The Spirit rests on the branch with wisdom, understanding, counsel, might, knowledge, and the fear of the Lord, and the predator-and-prey imagery pictures creation healed under the Messiah’s rule. Peace in Advent is eschatological before it is emotional. If you give a children’s message, let it explain the stump rather than replacing the text with craft time.
Week 3, joy that magnifies the Lord. Luke 1 gives Mary’s song after Elizabeth’s greeting. She rejoices in God her Savior, and she proclaims the scattering of the proud, the lifting of the humble, the filling of the hungry, and the rich sent away empty. That is revolution sung by a teenage girl who knows her Scripture. Explain the word “magnify,” which means to make large in praise and not to inflate Mary past what Scripture says of her. Tie the joy to God’s faithfulness to Abraham rather than to holiday stress management.
Week 4, love and the name Jesus. Matthew 1 tells Joseph’s side. An angel commands him to take Mary as his wife, the child is from the Holy Spirit, and his name will be Jesus because he will save his people from their sins. Immanuel arrives as the fulfillment of Isaiah 7. Advent closes on salvation before Christmas Day has begun, and Joseph’s obedience models a faithful response to a word that ruined his plans. It pairs well with the confession and assurance in the order of worship.
The wreath, the candles, and who lights them
Four candles mark the weeks and many traditions add a fifth, the Christ candle, lit on Christmas Eve. Explain the symbolism once, briefly, and let the readings carry the rest.
Assign the candle lighting to households rather than to staff. A child reading three sentences of prophecy before the flame goes up teaches something about who the church is that no announcement can. Rotate households across the four weeks so the honor is spread, and hand each household the text a week early.
Ask readers for clear, unhurried proclamation and no dramatic acting. Keep the total ceremony under ten minutes unless your tradition deliberately extends it. Light the candle before or after the reading and pick one order for all four weeks so nobody is guessing at the front of the room.
Before you post the singing, check the license
Advent is the season churches most want to record, and the music is the part that gets a page muted.
The CCLI Church Copyright License lets a church print lyrics in a bulletin or song sheet, project them, make a custom arrangement where no published version exists, and in CCLI’s own words “record and capture your worship services (audio and video) for archive or limited distribution to those unable to attend in person.” Posting a clip to a page anyone on earth can open is not on that list. CCLI sells the Streaming License separately for exactly that use.
The older hymns are a different matter. Works published in the United States before 1931 are in the public domain as of 1 January 2026, per the copyright term chart maintained by Peter B. Hirtle at Cornell University Library. Most hymnals print the date under the text and under the tune. If both dates are before 1931 you may reproduce and record that hymn freely. A modern translation, a new arrangement, or a fresh harmonization of an ancient tune carries its own copyright term regardless of how old the original is, so read both lines and not only the top one. The same test governs what goes in the bulletin.
Beyond the four Sundays
Christmas Eve deserves its own readings, Luke 2 or John 1 or both. Epiphany follows on 6 January with the Magi and the light to the nations, and it is the most neglected feast in the American church calendar.
For midweek Advent services or home worship, the same four passages work with shorter prayers. A family can read one section after dinner, sing one stanza, and pray for neighbors who do not know Christ. Simplicity at home catechizes better than production at church.
Put the whole schedule into the content calendar in September, run the dates against the liturgical calendar tool, and give the congregation the Advent schedule through your announcement channels before December begins, so the waiting becomes a shared practice instead of a surprise. Hold the Christmas greetings until the church has waited, or explain the distinction to your people from the pulpit before you break it.
Sources
- The Lectionary Page, Calendar of the Christian Year, 2026. Checked 29 July 2026.
- The Lectionary Page, Revised Common Lectionary Year B: Advent 1, Advent 2, Advent 3, Advent 4. Checked 29 July 2026.
- Consultation on Common Texts, The Revised Common Lectionary. Checked 29 July 2026.
- CCLI, Church Copyright License. Checked 29 July 2026.
- Peter B. Hirtle, Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States, Cornell University Library, last updated 1 January 2026. Checked 29 July 2026.
