First Sunday of Advent (Year C, RCL)

Advent must respond in some consequential way to the widening uncertainty of the living of our days.

What if Jesus is snatching us out of our desire for another world?

Trust your hearers. Trust the Spirit.

Climate science is apocalyptic: it reveals fundamental truths.

What will it take to break through our numbness?

To hear Andy Williams tell it, right now is the most wonderful time of year. It is also the most frantic and maddening time of year. We've commenced our shopping, decorating, and planning for the "best Christmas ever." Or maybe we're completely stressed and wringing our hands because we have no idea how we'll pull it off this year.

Church leaders aren't exempt from the frenetic pace by any means, because we've had Advent on our brains for some time already.

Advent stands at odds with the tranquility our culture hopes for this time of year. The coming of the Son of Man will yank us off the hamster wheel of life.

As the first Advent candle is lit, world leaders will be making their way to Paris to try to create a climate treaty.

My grandfather was at his 60th class reunion. During a round of golf with three classmates, one of his friends teed off. After hitting the ball, with his club still in the air, the man said, “Gentlemen, you’ll have to excuse me.” Then he fell to the ground, dead.

My grandfather recounted this, adding, “And it was a nice shot.” 

Advent’s scripture passages are about genuine rescue. But I wonder whether we’re sometimes embarrassed to preach about genuine rescue because we are embarrassed to admit we’re having a genuine emergency.

In the Bible, the ambiguity of shame is unmistakable.

How odd that the most hopeful season of the Christian calendar begins in the midst of darkness! When we light the first candle on the Advent wreath, it will not be a second too soon. This Advent I feel an urgent need for the light that comes from God, and I do not think I am the only one.

The realization that one has enemies, personal or professional, can make one adopt a guarded and self-limiting stance toward life. Yet in Psalm 25, where someone is wrestling with this kind of situation, we see the psalmist reaching out to the one he can trust as not treacherous, to whom he can relate, secure in the knowledge that in God he has a source of steadfast love.