Streams of Mercy
As a new church year begins, on the First Sunday of Advent, we speak of the end times or last days; when the days are shortest and the nights darkest, the church proclaims it to be the season of light. In the most hectic weeks of the year, when we face more activity, more expense and more pressure than ever, the church announces “peace on earth,” and as full and busy as this season is, we become aware of our emptiness, for we see our brokenness, and we long for the wholeness we can know in this one whose coming we await.
Each Advent, we remember and retell the story of people, who like us, were waiting for the promises of God to be fulfilled. In all the busy comings and goings of these next few weeks, we will be remembering how Jesus came among us long ago as a baby in Bethlehem, and how in God’s good time , he will come again to bring everything to fulfillment.
During special seasons of the church year, I try to make time for extra season-related studies. This year I’m reading a book of meditations for Advent and Christmas: A Child is Born. The reading for Day One comes from Isaiah 9, focusing on verse 6: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given…”
This Advent promise is intentionally “communal.” The child is born to “us” for “our” salvation, not to and for me or mine. “The promise addresses us as a family, a people, kindred, a commonwealth of peoples,” and in so doing teaches us once again that if we would know the blessing of this promise, we must embrace it in all its fullness. Even the nature of the gift, a child, defines the promise this “communal” way, for a child draws out our gifts of nurturing, cooperating and living in community. “It takes a village to raise a child,” we’ve heard many times! As we move through these weeks toward the manger, may we look around at those who journey with us and recognize the Advent promise is for “us.”
“Christ is coming! Christ is coming to make all things new!
Within us, without us, among us, before us;
In this place, in every place; for this time, for all time;
Christ is coming! Christ is coming to make all things new!”
In the hope of that promise, let every heart prepare him room!
(Wild Goose Worship Resources for Advent)
Elizabeth