The Rector of St Giles, Rev. Tom Sander, considers the season of Advent, its mystery and its promise.
I can’t quite put my finger on why Advent matters to me so much, but it does. I think it might be because while the world folds itself into a cosy sense of ‘Christmas-ness’, with all those heart-warming images and nostalgic themes; Advent is the homeless stranger standing in the cold, outside a well-manicured house, looking at those enjoying a Christmas scene though a frost-gripped window.
Advent really is the stranger looking for a home, the wanderer looking to return, it is the outside looking in. We live in a world where many are lost, ‘sorry as men without hope,’ putting their trust in all sorts of things which can never deliver. With Advent, however, the longing resolves in the hope of a world to come, a kingdom to be established here on earth as it is in heaven.
Christ ‘was in the world, and the world came into being through him, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. BUT…’ [John 1] But, to all who received him, who believed on his name, he gave power.
There is something in Advent of the unknown becoming known, of that which is longed-for becoming our gift. Christ is, of course, that longing and that gift.
Pray that we see his face.
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