Advent is a time that we prepare to celebrate Christ’s birth, but we also focus on preparing ourselves and the world around us for His return. Think about it: If you’re hosting a Christmas celebration, you go to great pains to clean the house so it’s presentable, decorate everything just right, prepare your best foods, all to present to your honoured invited guests. Advent spirituality is much the same. It’s a time of preparation. So, how do we apply this notion of Advent to our lives? By doing good. Galatians 6:9-10 reads “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.” John Wesley defined the principle as…
“Do all the good you can, By all the means you can, In all the ways you can, In all the places you can, At all the times you can, To all the people you can, As long as ever you can.”
Perhaps all too often we as Christians are defined by the things we do not do rather than what we strive to do—for example “to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8). Our advent preparations, our advent waiting can be active. Henri Nouwen suggests: “How do we wait for God? We wait with patience. But patience does not mean passivity. Waiting patiently is not like waiting for the bus to come, the rain to stop, or the sun to rise. It is an active waiting in which we live the present moment to the full in order to find there the signs of the One we are waiting for. This advent as we work through these reflections may we show others what Jesus means to us. May we reveal to others the love of God in tangible ways, the hope we have found in Christ by praying for and with others and doing all the good we can.
Perhaps we may be the answer to the prayer we pray for another - the hope for another, the joy and the comfort for another.
May the God of hope and the God of all people be with you this season and always.
2 comments:
Thanks for this - so looking forward to reading these during advent and having this time of reflection.
Really missed your blogs and truly amazed and humbled you are thinking of us when you are poorly. If it is Jackie doing this? - May God bless you Beth xx
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