This Sunday, we return to the season of Advent, which we celebrate as the weeks before Christmas that anticipate the coming of Christ into our world and into our lives. As much as our focus is on preparing for the commemoration of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, perhaps our focus this year might turn toward, not so much recollection of his birth, but anticipation of his return.

Our anticipation of his return should be joy-filled, because whenever and however he does return, it should be something we look forward to. Not in a morbid, can’t wait till this is all over kind of way, but in a way that says the life he gives us is pure gift, and that includes the gift of eternal life he promises each of us in our baptisms and that we live into all our lives.

Advent is a gift too, because it is one of those rare seasons when we are strongly encouraged to SLOW DOWN. Now for some of us, slowing down is the last thing we want to or can do. I know many of us who, if forced to sit down for a spell, will occupy that time with lists of things we will do the moment we can get up again.

The book we’re reading this Advent, Prepare the Way for the Lord, focuses on how John the Baptist’s life was all about preparing for the revelation of the Messiah. In telling John’s story, though, we must begin at the beginning, with John’s message of preparation for God to change our lives.

Is this the story of your own lives, especially now? Waiting for something better? Many of you are in a state of anxious waiting. For home repairs. For insurance payments to come through. For a medical procedure. For family gatherings. All good things to wait and hope for.

But into all that waiting, both the happy anticipation and the dread, comes John the Baptist’s cry, “Prepare the way of the Lord.” 

So whichever kind of waiting you find yourself in, you are given the gift of Advent, a time for you to join us in study every Monday morning or Wednesday evening, a time of transformational worship every Sunday, a special On the Way to Bethlehem event to prepare, and a time of reflection in your own private moments each day. Advent is indeed a gift, and as a gift, it is up to you whether you will find time to unwrap it. We encourage you to receive this gift in the spirit in which it is given, as an offer of grace that God gives us to take time to reflect on how our lives are going, and where we’d like them to be, all because we live in the now-and not-yet that is Christ’s presence in our lives.