Advent

Apparently, this is my 700th post. Wow! I'm not as frequent a poster as I'd like to be, mainly as this past few months have been rather over-full, but I think things are going to be slowing down now for the next few weeks, so maybe I'll have time to post more often.

Today is the first Sunday of Advent,
Last year, I went through some serious re-thinking about Christmas, Advent and the difference between the two. Some of my thoughts about Advent are here

We determined to celebrate Christmas at the traditional time for and English Christmas: the 12 days beginning on Christmas Day and not to be pressurised, by consumerism or other cutural celebrations, to start Christmas celebrations in Advent. You can read about that a little
here

And after Christmas, I tried to sum it all up here

In short, we were very pleased with our radical change in emphasis. It re-focused us appropriately and re-ordered our priorities. We were able to rest when we needed to, while others were simply exhausted and 'sick of Christmas'. It was so good.

Today, as Jamie and I were let loose in charge of planning the whole service at church, we managed to get this message, which we believe to be so important, across through words and songs. I read the following:

Advent is the season of waiting, with hope and expectation, for the coming
of Jesus.

Many people think of it as a time of preparation,
sometimes frantic, practical preparation, for Christmas. In recent years,
the
period of Advent has been enfolded into our Christmas celebrations.
However, it
wasn’t always this way.

In the past, Advent had a dual
function for
the church, both of looking backwards and forwards into time.
During Advent,
Christians firstly remembered the time of anxious waiting for
the Messiah, by
God’s people. This is what we remembered in the song, O
Come, O Come Immanuel.

But, all through the history of the church,
Advent has also been a
time of looking forward to the Second Coming of
Jesus.
The future, visible,
return from heaven of Jesus, the Messiah, to
raise the dead, hold the last
judgment, and set up the kingdom of God. The
book of Matthew tells us that those
who are alive then, ‘will see the Son of
Man coming on the clouds of the sky,
with power and great glory.’

So, the remainder of our songs today
tell of who Jesus is, and
remind us that he WILL come back again.

Not as a baby this time, but in
his glory, as God.

Yes, we sang O Come O Come Immanuel, that beautiful Advent hymn describing God's
people awaiting their Messiah. But we also sang, This reminder of what's coming. Not as beautifully as Lou Fellingham, but we did our best.

I hope this is helpful to someone today.
Blessings.