Advent is Coming

Advent is the season of preparation consisting of the four Sundays before Christmas. Advent is a countercultural time, a kind of fast that precedes the feast of Christmas. While the world around us is proclaiming that Christmas is here through decorations, songs, shopping, etc - regardless of whether Jesus is part of that Christmas or not - the Church in its liturgical observance waits and longs with expectation. Thus Advent is a season where we focus first on the second coming of our Lord in great glory and power only to draw our attention more acutely to his first coming in great humility and obscurity so long ago. 

 

To assist us in our advent spirituality we’ll make advent wreaths Sunday night after church. To join in our fellowship dinner and wreath making, please RSVP here. The advent wreath can be used to mark time in your home. My family lights a candle corresponding to the week of the season each night in dinner. And as we do so, we see the light grow greater and greater just as we long for the light of Christ to break in on us even now in our dark world. The light grows week by week until at Christmas Eve we light the Christ candle and light our own candles from that light. The symbolism is deep and lasting. And the hope is that the reality the symbols represent burn ever brighter in our lives.

 

Make plans to intentionally worship and mark time this season of Advent because Christmas is coming - as surely as our Lord Jesus. 


- Jay+

As we behold the face of God in the face of Christ, we are transformed into his image. This is what it means to be fully human—to become like Jesus, the truly human one, and to grow more and more in the freedom of the children of God.