I am ready for Advent. For blue fabrics that wash over the altar and candles that are lit each week reminding us of the journey we will travel to the manger – walking with the companions of hope, peace, joy, and love. I am ready for Advent. I am ready for “Deck the Halls of Ascension” and the CRASH Progressive Dinner. I am ready for our Advent concert worship and Sunday brunch and the Children’s Christmas program and treasured carols and celebrating Las Posadas and being in the sanctuary on Christmas Eve all together hearing the Christmas story. I am ready for Advent.
Personally, it has been quite a journey these last three months. I am glad to be back in the routine of worship on Sundays and the “stuff” of ministry during the week. I want to offer my deep appreciation to you for the time and space for surgery and healing.
I am hopeful that the season of Advent will offer me the opportunity to rebalance my spiritual life. If the season of Advent offers us anything, it offers us the chance to begin again. I need that chance more this year than ever before. I wonder if you are feeling that way too.
Advent is the season of expectation. Advent is also about tending our hunger for all that God promises to make new in the birth of a Savior. If ever we have hungered for God to do a new thing it may be this year, this December, this Advent. I am hungry for God to usher in peace into our world: for an end to hostilities in Ukraine; for a ceasefire in Gaza; for tolerance between sides; for acceptance of those who are different; for joy in the midst of sorrow.
I sat with members of the church a couple of weeks ago in the ICU as we prayed around the bedside of someone we loved. It does not matter how many times I sit at the bedside of someone I know in the ICU, it never gets easier. At Waukesha Memorial, the ICU only has so many rooms. When I walk into the ICU, the memories of other bedside visits gather with me like a cloud of witnesses. Every name, every face is reminded to me – moments of laughter and tears. The ICU has become a sanctuary of holy ground. The sounds of heartbeats and heart monitors intermingle in the waiting space of the ICU. Every family walks their own journey through their days in the ICU. As always, being invited into such sacred space is more privilege than anything else.
Following in the footsteps of Mary and Joseph in these Advent days is also a privilege. One we often take lightly. A journey I wish to feel deeper this year as I reflect on the hardship of the census Mary and Joseph had to endure so close to Mary’s date of delivery. What Mary must have thought to herself about the adventure and journey God placed upon her heart and soul when the angel Gabriel visited Mary to share the news of what was about to take place.
It is my hope that these Advent days will offer you moments of reflection at the dinner table, over coffee, while washing dishes or wrapping gifts. Moments of reflection that would give you pause to remember and give thanks while also inviting you to reflect and reach out. Who do you know who would welcome a phone call, a text message, fresh baked cookies to bring a smile to their face? Especially those who are preparing to walk through their first Christmas without someone they love.
I am reminded that every one of us is on a journey in these Advent days. For some of us the journey is a choice – for others, the journey has been pressed upon us. Regardless of how we find ourselves setting out on the journey, I hope you remember that you are not alone. Thanks be to God!
May the blessings of your Advent journeys always lead you home this Christmas.
O come let us adore him! Christ the Lord. Peace and joy be yours.
Pastor Chris
