Introduction to Advent 2022

Welcome to the Season of Advent. At the core of Advent’s purpose is the discipline of patient, watchful anticipation. In the season of Advent, we practice watching and waiting. Most of us these days are pretty lousy at waiting. We live in a world where the economy is based on shrinking the space between feeling a desire and satisfying it. We expect our food to come quickly, our mail orders to arrive tomorrow, we binge- watch entire seasons of TV shows in a few nights, and even a few seconds of delay in our internet speed creates a feeling of disgust. We want what we want, and we want it now!

Even when our desires are good and holy, we are impatient for their satisfaction. We look around at our world and can see its brokenness. Whether we look inside ourselves, at the lives of our family, friends, and neighbors, or at what’s happening in the wider world, we see the truth of Paul’s words: “the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.” (Romans 8) We wait.

Waiting may seem like doing nothing, but waiting can be fruitful. It prepares us to receive and enter the joy of Christmas. It deepens our ability to experience joy even while we patiently endure trials, knowing that the day is surely coming when the trials will end and a new day will dawn. It opens our eyes to see God’s promises fulfilled in ways we might miss were it not for new alertness borne of the Holy Spirit, borne of waiting.

This is the season of Advent. Within the pages of this devotional are stories of the infinite touching the finite, the divine communing with creation. These are stories of God embracing our friends and neighbors. May this devotional bring you inspiration as we wait together.

- Pastor Jeff

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