Why Advent?

It's cold here this week. 

Really cold. Scrape the ice off your car cold and do the whole I can see this little tiny slot, cold. 

Finally beginning to feel like the Christmas season although I hate this weather. The cold really is not what I would choose but it is the season we are in and it's Advent. 

The season of waiting. The season on wonder. The season on hope, peace, joy and love. 

As I sit here writing, early this morning, I have to wonder "why"? 

Why do we celebrate the coming of Christ? How do we find hope and peace and joy and love in a world that is tearing itself apart? How do we experience the miracle of the tiny babe born by Mary?

I preached on the 2nd week of Advent, peace, this past Sunday looking at all that was happening in the world. We talked about the shootings on naval bases, poverty throughout all of the world, violence that seeps into people's everyday life that some of us are so far removed from we assume it doesn't touch our lives.

Yet does it? Of course it does. Everyone that is suffering, everyone that lives in fear, everyone that is fighting and searching for justice in their life; they are all of our responsibility as the tiny babe will grow into a man and tell us all of this. 

And we seem to forget it from time to time or only focus on the realities of the world at certain times of the year when we are truly called to remember the coming Christ, to remember the Resurrected Christ and the Very Spirit of God each and every day in our lives and not just when the season seems appropriate.

Advent is needed and longed for every single day that we wake up with a fresh start a head of us. 

Every single time that we meet a person in need.

Every time we are told no b/c of our gender, race, culture, gender identity, socio-economic level

Every time we are made to feel less than any bit of who we are; named and called beloved by God.

Isaiah prophesied that a child will come, a tiny babe, to lead the whole world to this place of peace where even the wolf and the lamb will be in peace together. Where prey will not know predator

Where people will be one and be with God and where the true miracle of the world will happen; the true Advent, the true start of a new beginning that is with God and of God. 

We can sit around and wait every single year for Advent to come or we can live out Advent every day. 

We can stand up for one another, we can feed each other, we can clothe each other, we can tell each other about the love of God that surrounds us, holds us and names us. 

We can be the light of Christ for each other, not just on the longest night of the year but each and every day that we are called to be God's children and called to care for the least of these. 

So the answer to my question- why advent? 

Advent because advent changes everything. Advent reminds us of what we are longing for in our lives, the peace and tranquility that comes with the birth of Christ

And that even when we are in the midst of deep despair, grief, illness and everything that gets in the way of us seeing God in our lives... Advent reminds us that God is there

That God came in the form of the tiny babe, born to a woman and a man that were incredibly scared of what it meant and how they were going to raise the Christ child.

Lean into the uncertainty just as Mary and Joseph did, into the unknown and find the love of God in your life so you can go out and share it with all.

Lean into Advent today and everyday and as you do remember that you are enough, you are worthy and you are beloved.

-Pastor Ali