Advent Morning

Advent begins this morning.  This first season on the Christian Calendar will be duly observed in most liturgically based churches today and ignored or given a very casual glance in the others.  It is a season about waiting.  But, it is not the kind of waiting we do in offices of important people, or the kind of waiting a husband might do for his wife, or even the kind of waiting a little child does before Christmas morning.  Instead, it is a waiting which has at its core a belief that God is about to act and there is nothing more important than being ready.    

It is a hard and difficult season.  When rightly observed its days are somber, stark, and empty of festivity.  It is a season of longing, anticipation, and waiting.  It is really a season no one wants to observe because December means Christmas and no one, not even the church crowd, wants to wait.  Most churches will be filled with Christmas trees and festive ribbons midst greenery hung on the end of every pew and the first song may be "Come, Thou long Expected Jesus," but it is more likely that some Christmas song will be sung before the morning is done.  

Advent is intended to be a thoughtful and reflective moment as those who worship are called to think about how life needs to be changed in order to be ready for God to act in our lives which, of course, is what is out there on the horizon as Christmas approaches.  What is central to the Advent season is the reality that God has acted in a powerful way when Jesus was born into the world.  It was a moment when God acted in such a way as to save us from ourselves and our sin.  What does that mean for us?  Listen again to the Advent hymns and read again those Advent scriptures and then sit for a spell until the silence settles deep into our spirit.  The answer awaits those who have ears to hear.