Bishop Robert Wright on Advent: Again

Advent is the season where we practice how to expect something new from God. Pay attention to the lessons for these four Sundays. The sky and the land begin to churn. Something cosmic will touchdown locally. God initiates. Our response? We watch, wait, and make room. Like John did, we announce to anybody who will listen, love overflowing has come. There is a love able to wash away sins and stains. Advent is no child's fairy tale. All of this happens in an occupied land. Amidst brutality and poverty. "Siege is laid against you...," is how Micah felt. We know that feeling. But, even he would later say, even under siege, in this God we can "...live secure."  

Wow!

Advent finishes with a pregnant, once infertile, senior citizen and a teenage unwed mother trying to talk about what's happening. What does it all mean? Adoration and thanksgiving! Praise and oblation! God didn't fail. God proves God's fidelity yet again. In the real world! Living differently is justified. Advent is more than something to endure before Christmas. More than the church trying to spiritualize the last month of shopping days. Advent is how we rehearse what Elizabeth said, "Blessed are they who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken by the Lord." Luke 1:45

Rely on God again; God is trustworthy.

Taken with permission from the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta.