Skip to main content

Advent: A Season of Waiting and Longing

We have just bought ourselves an Advent calendar. We couldn’t find one with the nativity scene but did find one with a village church in the snow - so it sort of has a Christian association!

Advent is the four weeks in the Church year which comes before Christmas. It is a time for glorious music. Marian, our music director, goes on an annual pilgrimage to a different cathedral each year for their Advent carol service. We plan to have one at All Saints Sutton in Burnham Market on Sunday 7 December at 6:30pm. It may not quite be of cathedral standard(!) – but it is a good opportunity to sing some of the great hymns.

Advent is about waiting. The readings from the Bible we hear in church tell how the Jewish people waited for a promised child to be born, a Messiah who would get them out of the mess they were in. They tell of the months before the birth of Jesus: of John the Baptist who came ‘to prepare the way’, and of the angel who came to Mary with the astonishing news that she is to be the mother of God. And our readings tell us that the risen King Jesus will return as judge and ruler, to bring in and establish his Kingdom of love, truth, mercy, justice, right-ness, abundance and joy.

The great Advent hymns express that longing: ‘O Come O Come Emmanuel’, ‘Come thou long expected Jesus’, ‘Lo he comes with clouds descending’ and the penultimate line of the bible becomes our prayer, ‘Amen, come Lord Jesus’.

Advent is about waiting and longing. We all know what it is to wait, even in our instant-gratification society. Babies do not grow in the womb overnight; we wait for news of a new job, for the house to sell, the holiday, or an operation. One of the people who has shaped me most as a Christian was still offering spiritual counsel to many even at the end of his life. He would tell me how he was waiting - indeed longing - to go home to be with the Lord he loved. And perhaps we, too, might allow ourselves to wait and to long for that different world promised by God all those years ago.  

That is why, in many church traditions, Advent is a time for fasting – of longing, emptying ourselves, clearing out the rubbish, self-examination, giving attention to the non-material, and turning to God – as we wait for the coming of the new. The tradition of fasting before we feast is very ancient and rich, and one that sadly is often lost in the commercial and social whirlwind that is the runup to Christmas.

So, I wish you a happy Advent. It is good to stop for a while - to look back to where we have come from, and to look forward to where we believe we are going. Perhaps we might pray that God will give us a deep longing for Jesus: for his presence, for his coming again and for the world he points us toward.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Most popular posts

The separation of good from evil: Matthew 13.24-30,36-43

Matthew 13.24-30,36-43 We look this morning at a parable Jesus told about the Kingdom on God (Matthew talks of Kingdom of heaven but others speak of it as the Kingdom of God) 1. In this world, good and evil grow together. ‘The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; 38the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one, 39and the enemy who sowed them is the devil’ (v37) The Son of Man (Jesus) sows the good seed. In the first story that Jesus tells in Matthew, the seed is the Word of God, and different kinds of people are like the different soils which receive the seed. Here the illustration changes a bit, and we become the seed. There is good seed and there is weed, evil, seed. This story is not explaining why there is evil. It is simply telling us that there is evil and that it was sown by the enemy of God. And it tells us that there is good and there is bad. There are people who have their face turned towards ...
1 comment
Read more

Isaiah 49:1-7 What does it mean to be a servant of God?

Isaiah 49:1-7 This passage speaks of two servants. The first servant is Israel, the people of God. The second servant will bring Israel back to God. But then it seems that the second servant is also Israel.  It is complicated! But Christians have understood that this passage is speaking of Jesus. He is both the servant, who called Israel back to God, but he is also Israel itself: he is the embodiment, the fulfilment of Israel In the British constitution the Queen is the head of the State. But she is also, to a degree, the personal embodiment of the state. What the Queen does, at an official level, the UK does. If the Queen greets another head of State, then the UK is greeting that other nation. And if you are a UK citizen then you are, by definition, a subject of Her Majesty. She is the constitutional glue, if this helps, who holds us all together. So she is both the servant of the State, but she is also the embodiment of the State. And Jesus, to a far grea...
Post a Comment
Read more

The dead mouse theory of purity

Mark 7:1-13 We're looking today at two visions of what it is to be holy; what it is to be pure, acceptable  There is the human vision of purity: I call this the dead mouse theory of purity. And there is God's vision of purity: the fire theory of purity THE HUMAN VISION OF PURITY - however that is understood - is that I am pure, but that my purity is destroyed by things and people out there.  Our cat is very generous. Most mornings she brings us a gift of a dead mouse. Unfortunately we do not particularly like finding dead mice on our kitchen floor. So I get a tissue, pick up the unfortunate dead creature by the tail and throw it outside. The dead mouse contaminates our house and needs must go.  The dead mouse theory of purity says that in order to maintain your purity, the dead mice, the things that contaminate you, must go. So, in order to keep or maintain my purity, I need to keep away from them. And there are a whole load of rules which are hand...
Post a Comment
Read more