Dear Faith Family,
Sunday officially sparked the beginning of the Advent season! It's here once more, a special time of the year in which the anticipation of something wonderful and new fills our hearts, catches our sight, echoes in our ears, and swims in our dreams. It is truly one of my favorite seasons, and I don't think I'm alone in that sentiment!
One of the things that makes Advent so refreshing for my faith is that it is a journey, not an event—a marked movement, day by day, that is taking us somewhere. And while the destination is the thing we are most excited about, it is the getting there that is the most revelatory.
For all that Advent is and can be, it is most pointedly a season for paying attention. And this year, our attention is set on the visions of anticipation and arrival from prophets young and old, ancient and modern. From Isaiah's pictures to Van Gogh's portrait to stories like the one we read on Sunday.
As we've learned over these past months, Prophets herald ends that are really beginnings and beginnings of the end for which we long. They awaken our imagination and our faith with visions of ends to what we know and beginnings of a different, deeper end to which we live now, all because what has been--Christ has come!--and what will be--Christ will come again!--ensures Christ is with us!
Like no other time of year, we are reminded of the truth that Jesus has come, born of woman, swaddled under the expanse of angels singing. And that he will return, as the Lamb slain and risen, King of kings, arriving once more to complete what he started in us and the world. All the while calling our attention to the truth that he has never once left us, and we can expect that he never will.
Little advents, Jesus arrivals, continue to occur all around us if only we pay attention! Advent, in the prophetic tradition, helps us pay attention through the daily and weekly rhythms amid all the signs of the season.
Advent draws our attention and our faith to the world ending and re-creating reality of life with Jesus. For Advent "calls us to a posture of alertness...watchful and ready...for the signs of hope," that the end comes in the beginning.
So, this Advent, let us join together in asking our Father for eyes to see in the signs of the season, the faithfulness of His presence, and the beginnings of the end.
"May the God of great hope fill us up with joy,
fill us up with peace,
so that our believing lives,
filled with the life-giving energy of the Holy Spirit,
will brim over with hope!"
(Romans 15:13)
Love you, faith family! God bless.