Advent Eve

In the past, God spoke…through the prophets at many times and in various ways. Hebrews 1:1

Tomorrow we start our Advent Journey. 

In a "Peanuts" cartoon strip, good old Charlie Brown says to Linus, "Life is just too much for me. I’ve been confused from the day I was born. I think the whole trouble is that we’re thrown into life too fast. We’re not really prepared." Linus asks, "What did you want . . . a chance to warm up first?"

Advent is a time in which we share in the longing of all those who lived in the distant past. We must feel how, in their suffering and struggle, they too longed for redemption and liberation, for unity, for peace, for a golden age. They waited for a manifestation of God’s love and unity, for a breaking in of his justice among the nations.

We must learn to put ourselves in the place of all those  who were waiting for him who was to come. This One was to free them from their need and disruption, from sin, from their lack of fellowship, from their lost condition, so that they might come to God.

Advent is a time when we await God’s intervention in the need of the present day, as he intervened then in Jesus’ birth. We long for the highest power to rescue this unhappy, torn humanity that knows so little community. Now is the time to ask God for a radical change in all things, even if this means we must go through judgment.

The mystery begins

Where the winter finds its feet

the rush of frost and chill

competes with the old hope of incarnation

Darker nights unfold

and with the fading of the light

the sun weakens

held by this frozen earth

wrapped in winters frost 

the mystery of the ancient hope is alight once more

for from the stump of Jesse

the dry old tree of David’s line

comes a new branch

a new shoot

cracking through the season

with a promise yet unfulfilled

this is the hoping

the waiting

the advent

Let us gather round the words

the prophets spoke long ago

and believe:

Emmanuel is on the way

Come Lord Jesus, come. Amen