Welcome To The Advent-ure!

The observance of the seasons of the church year has a long history in the life of the Christian Faith. When most of the people in the church were poor and had no access to education, the church festivals and the cycle of the church year provided a vehicle for teaching the story of God and His actions in human history in a consistent way.

This month we enter the season of Advent.

The word Advent means "coming" or "arrival." The focus of this entire season is the celebration of the birth of Jesus the Christ in his first Advent, and the anticipation of the return of Christ the King in his second Advent.

In this double focus on past and future, we affirm that Christ has come, that He is present in the world today, and that He will come again in power. That acknowledgment provides a basis for how
we live our lives in this ‘in-between time’.

As we celebrate God’s in-breaking into history in the Incarnation, and anticipate a future consummation to that history, we confess our responsibility as God’s people to BE THE MESSAGE.

Advent is marked by a spirit of expectation, of anticipation, of preparation, of longing. There is a yearning for deliverance from the evils of the world, first expressed by Israelite slaves in Egypt as they cried out from their bitter oppression.

It is the cry of those who have experienced the tyranny of injustice in a world under the curse of sin, and yet who have hope of deliverance by a God who has heard the cries of oppressed slaves and brought deliverance!

It is that hope, however faint at times, and that God, however distant He sometimes seems, which brings to the world the anticipation of a King who will rule with truth and justice and righteousness over His people and in His creation.

It is that hope that once anticipated, and now anticipates anew, the reign of an Anointed One, a Messiah, who will bring peace and justice and righteousness to the world.

In our families, homes, neighbourhoods, workplaces, schools, colleges and universities let’s live as people of hope, anticipating the coming King, whose Kingdom is an everlasting one and
whose reign will last forever.

This season may we see a bit more of the reign of Jesus expressed through our lives and community.

Welcome to the Advent- ure!