Advent Over the Next Few Weeks

One of the blessings of serving on a good-sized clergy team is having the ability to hear from different pastoral voices from time-to-time.  Accordingly, Rebecca McFee, Bryson Lillie, and David Dalke will each be taking one of the remaining Sundays in Advent and preaching on the general theme of The Lights of Advent.  They each will be bringing their own unique perspective to this theme, and I am looking forward to the variety coming up over the next three weeks, 12/8 "Then One Foggy Christmas Eve" (Rebecca), 12/15 "Street Lights, Home, and Hearth" (Bryson), and 12/22 "A Flickering Light Out Back" (David).  I will be leading worship at CrossWalk on 12/8 "Warming the Advent Wreath" and will be preaching at the Wellington campus on 12/15 "The Paradox of Blessing".

As I shared in my last blog, The Lights of Advent explores the season from the metaphorical perspective of the season serving as various forms of light, illuminating aspects of the human condition and the journey of life that can sometimes be just a bit dark.  Advent draws our attention to the spiritual reality that life need not be dark if we live it in the light of the One who is the Light of the world.  I phrase it that way because too often we focus inordinately on the "past tense" aspects of the Christmas story, focusing too much (in my opinion) on what Marcus Borg and other Biblical scholars call "the Jesus of history", and not enough on what those same scholars refer to as "the Christ of faith".  The significance of Christmas has as much to do with the latter as it does the former, and that is because "the Christ of faith" is whom we interact with now as the "living Christ".  The pageantry of the story that ties us to the past event is all well and good, but not if its significance stops there, as if Bethlehem placed some sort of "QED" on the work of God's self-revelation to creation.  The whole point of the Incarnation is that we would learn to live with God in transformative ways in our lives today!  And, as a series of lights - search (or signal), fog, street, stable, and candle - Advent becomes something we are responsible to as it points us to the mystery of Immanuel, "God-with-us".

I hope you'll be sure to be in worship over the next several Sundays, if you can; our associate pastors are great!  I would also invite you to a special "service of calm" the evening of Dec. 22, 6 PM in our Chapel.  This is a special-focused service, helping all for whom the season is hectic or upsetting or alienating to feel the loving presence of God in an "after hours" kind of celebration.  It also happens to be the shortest day/longest night of the year, so we begin the long ascent out of the deep winter season the next day.

Stay afterward this Sunday, Dec. 8th, for our Advent Workshop, a very family-friendly event with holiday snacks and loads of holiday crafts that kids of all ages will enjoy.

God's peace and blessings -

Steve
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