Advent 2008

 

My dear Friends,

We are about to enter the season of Advent, the four weeks prior to Christmas. “Advent” means “Arrival”, and the purpose of the season is to deepen our sense of eager anticipation.

But eager anticipation is about the last thing most of us feel when we contemplate the future. We are worried about pensions, worried about climate change, worried about war, worried about clean water, worried about new diseases, worried about our own health. If someone were to say to us how much they were looking forward to the future, we'd wistfully remember our childhood time of innocence long ago, and wonder if the person speaking to us was out of touch with reality. Few of us look to the future with eager anticipation.

Which is why the season of Advent, of eager anticipation, is so important. Our Sunday themes, starting at the end of November, deliberately fly in the face of everything our society believes. Our Sunday services will be saying, “Look forward eagerly, God's future is arriving!” Since we should never say anything in a service that we don't believe, the season of Advent forces us to re-think our attitudes to the future.

To look forward eagerly to the future isn't to stick our heads in the sand. It isn't about fooling ourselves into a false sense of security. It is about trusting that God really is behind whatever happens in history.

Does a financial crisis threaten? Then in Advent we are supported in learning how to put our roots down deep into the security of God. Experiencing that security is something we look forward to, eagerly. What a sense of freedom and energy that releases in us! Almost because of the financial threat, we experience the deep security of God even more.

Are we worried about climate chaos? Then in Advent we are supported in learning that God's fecund creativity will never be absent, no matter what happens. Learning to experience that joy is something we can look forward to, eagerly. What leadership and expectation that makes possible in us! Almost because of the tragedy of climate change, we find the underlying astonishing creativity of God even more real than before and we find ourselves able to use that energy to care for creation.

Does consumerism seem so superficial, and our lives unable to escape from it? Then in Advent we are supported in knowing that God's new life can be conceived anywhere. Living in the expectation that we ourselves may be giving birth to unexpected depths of meaning in life motivates us with joyful expectation. Almost because of being drowned in meaninglessness, we find the deep call of God to fulfilment more audible than before.

Advent is the antidote to hopelessness and numbness. Advent says to us, “Take the promise of God's great future more seriously than you ever have before.” And peoples' universal experience when they do is that they receive deeper life than they'd ever thought possible.

Look forward to the future with eager expectation? You bet! Grasp the courage offered to us by God, with both hands, and it will seem like living a whole new life. It could feel like being born into a new way of life. At Christmas, it could seem as if it were we who are being born with God's life in us. And then the purpose of Advent will be fulfilled!

Please join in the Advent services starting November 30th, and join in the experience of eager expectation for our future.

You will find an envelope enclosed to help make possible St. John's proclamation that God's future really is awaiting us. You will also find a calendar of events to which you are invited as we grow together in God's new life.

Sincerely yours,

Harold Munn

Harold Munn, Rector