Dear Family,
Happy Advent. I hope your Thanksgiving Day was a blast. Since I must write this letter early, I don’t know how my Thanksgiving was. (You know there is a Twitch in here somewhere...)
I know I am expecting to celebrate the Eucharist with you and I am hoping that the liturgy will be as nice as it always is. I’ll cook a little. Lengthy kitchen time has been a little harder over this past eight months, but it’s a great recreation for me.
Anticipating my Thanksgiving seems like a great example of exactly what it’s like to be on our walk to heaven. I know where I’m going, but I’m not quite sure what the journey is going to be like – even after 75 years. In fact, I think I know less now that I did when I was a ‘callow youth.” My knowing is not the same as my hoping, and my hoping is much bigger than it ever has been.
I believe hope is living and I never want to drift into presumption. Hope is a living experience. Presumption seems to be a prejudice cast in stone. Stones weigh things down.
Today we begin another liturgical year. We’ll look to Matthew’s Gospel to help us on the jour-ney. (I hope you have considered joining the bible study on Matthew that begins tomorrow night! 7pm to 8:30pm.)
We heard Jesus speak about ‘end times’. Matthew tells us that Jesus said,
“Two men will be out in the field;
one will be taken, and one will be left.”
My first thought after reading that line was “Taken where? Left where?” Well, you can guess. ‘Taken’ into the Kingdom of God... ‘left’ for destruction. In Romans, Paul urges us, “it is the hour now for you to awake from sleep.” In other words, ditch the presumption.
Isaiah says, “Come, let us climb the LORD’s mountain... let us walk in the light of the Lord!” We’ve got somewhere to go!
As I said last week, how ironic that it is a civil holiday that call gratitude and thanks out of us. Praise God for the opportunity. That’s why I think when, with you, I read this Twitch on this Sunday after Thanksgiving, I’m going to be aware of my gratitude to God in a deeper way.
BUT... this is not simply memories of the past, but expectations of the future. When I sat down to write this, the header was the first thing that came to mind. “You better be good, you better be nice... Santa Claus...” etc.
Who IS coming? We know it is Jesus, who is here, has already come for us, and is coming back again, the three Comings of the Lord.
I’m not launching into a diatribe against com¬mercialism. You could probably do it better than me because you probably see more.
What I am saying is I want to let my hope ex-plode into actions that reflect the goodness of the Lord. I want the celebration of his coming to remind me IN CAPITAL LETTERS that I want to be “TAKEN.” Hope is making me available for the taking and it opens the door to doing the loving things that make Christmas more than nostalgia.
Make Advent count. Make thinking about Jesus coming to your front door, not something that is foreboding, but is the most positive thing that can happen to you. He WILL come if you “wake from your sleep.” Again, Happy Advent.
As always,
In Jesus
