Dec 2015
I don’t know about you but I felt like the church season of Advent really snuck up on us this year. We paused in November to praise God and offer thanksgiving to God for all that is good. We sat with family and friends around a table, bowing our heads to speak words of grace. I was really content to simply bask in the glow of gratitude. Gratitude is that thing that words can not really express but is felt in the deepest parts of our heart and soul. I was sitting in that space so comfortably that I almost missed that the first Sunday of Advent was upon us.
I grew up with an advent tradition. We went to church every Wednesday, each week a part of the story of Christmas added to the manger scene and of course, the cookies after church were an incentive to attend the service. As I grew older I came to appreciate the story of Adevnt as a time of waiting and anticipating the Christ child’s arrival. I learned about the lighting the advent candles of hope, peace, joy and love, all of which are to point us in the direction of what it is like to feel God’s presence with us. I learned that my Jewish friends celebrated God’s presence with candles as well during Hanukkah.
Like the Old Testement people of Israel, we live in a time where we long for an experience of God. We long for God’s presence to reassure us that God is in control. We long for God’s presence to remind us that things are going to be ok. We long for God’s presence, a presence that is wrapped in hope, peace, joy and love.
Practicing God’s presence at all times and in all places is something I learned first on my mat, practicing yoga. Yoga taught me to pay attention to what is going on around me and often that was to notice where God is moving and acting to draw us all together in hope, peace, joy and love.
I may have been resting in gratitude a little longer than usually this year, but God’s presence was there too. The retelling of the Christmas story through the liturgical season of Advent has just begun, again. Pause, take a breath or 2, or more and experience the unwrapping of God’s promise of presence through the lens of hope, peace, joy and love.
Peace,
Pastor Cindy
