Advent I

Theme: Hope

Hebrew Scripture: Jeremiah 33.14-16

Psalm: Psalm 25.1-10

Gospel: Luke 21.25-36

We talked about the meaning of advent, what it means to wait. I shared this quotation with Joan and the kids:

Most of us think of waiting as something very passive, a hopeless state determined by events totally out of our hands. The bus is late? You cannot do anything about it, so you have to sit there and just wait. It is not difficult to understand the irritation people feel when somebody says, 'Just wait.' Words like that seem to push us into passivity.

But there is none of that passivity in scripture. Those who are waiting are waiting very actively...Active waiting means to be present fully to the moment in the conviction that something is happening where you are and that you want to be present to it. A waiting person is someone who is present to the moment, who believes that this moment is the moment. Henri Nouwen

We then talked about hope. Hope means not a wishful thought, but a confident faith, that something promised will happen. As we wait for Messiah, we wait with confident faith because of the Faithful One who promised him.

O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee O Israel!