Friends of God,
Advent may be my favorite season of the Church year. The longing, the waiting, the hope, the anticipation, I connect so deeply to the spirituality of it all. I love the music, “O Come, O Come, Emanuel” and the other ancient melodies of Western Europe feel like home to me. I wonder what melodies feel like home to you this time of year. Is it something from another place and another time like mine? Or is it something more contemporary?
What music feels like home?
Advent also challenges me. We’ll hear from all four preachers this season (I’m preaching the Sunday following Thanksgiving, the First Sunday of Advent) and each sermon will have a challenge wrapped up in it somehow. The readings we chose for the season ask us to wake up.
They ask us to prepare. They speak of peaceable kingdoms and the coming of the Day of The Lord. Advent is a challenging season. We’re not waiting for Christmas morning in some warm fuzzy sense (though, I do love that, too). No, we’re waiting for the Apocalypse, the “inbreaking” of God.
That’s what “apocalypse” means, you know ‐ “in‐breaking.” It means “revelation,” the “aha!” of recognizing the divine.
Perhaps you have noticed a little literature around the church about how Advent is a conspiracy and the Apocalypse is something into which we are invited to participate. Mercy. Justice. Reconciliation. Jubilee. These are all apocalyptic.
This season, we’re invited to be apocalyptic. We’re invited to try it on, this kind of waiting that brings forth justice and peace, the kind of expectation that assumes God Is Here With Us. We are citizens of the Peaceable Kingdom.
So, as you read about the various events scheduled, the worship services, the Christmas Caroling, and the movie the kids are making, imagine these as apocalyptic practices.
We are all longing for a home. That home is the Peaceable Kingdom, the Time of God. It is a place and a people. We will sing ourselves into that home this year.
Peace and All Good Things,
Pastor Tripp
