Sunday, Nov. 27 was the first Sunday in the season of Advent 2022. The word “Advent” comes from the Latin “adventus,” which means coming or arrival.
In the season of Advent, we celebrate the coming of Jesus many centuries ago and we anticipate the return of Jesus. We celebrate the in-breaking of God’s reign with Jesus’ birth and we anticipate a time when God’s reign is fully present. This is why we pray God’s kingdom come, God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven in the prayer Jesus taught us.
Isaiah provides a vision for how that reign could look in 2:3-4 – people from everywhere will gather to worship the Lord and to learn God’s ways; then everyone will follow that instruction. The result will be an end to warfare and violence.
The Lord will mediate between nations and will settle international disputes.
They will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will no longer fight against nation, nor train for war anymore.
The season of Advent provides an opportunity for us to express our longing for God’s peaceable reign to come in fullness. We see war, violence, and bloodshed in our world and we say to God, “How long?” At the same time, it is an opportunity to look forward to our future with hope. Our hope is not ‘pie in the sky’ hope, but hope grounded in what God has already done in Jesus. God has raised Jesus above all the powers that oppose God, and those powers are already subject to God’s anointed.
Most importantly, however, the season of Advent invites us to be watching for signs of God’s restorative work here and now. Although we remember the past, and look forward to the promised future, God expects us to be most focused on the present moment. Barbara Brown Taylor writes, “I remember something one of my professors told me once, about how the second coming of Christ was an idea cooked up by some church father with only two fingers. The truth, he said, is that Christ comes again, and again, and again – that God has placed no limit on coming to the world, but is always on the way to us here and now. The only thing we are required to do is to notice – to watch, to keep our eyes peeled.”
This Advent season, look around for signs of God’s presence in the here and now. It might be hard to perceive amidst the noisy, sparkly celebrations, but God is here now working all things together for good. And we have the opportunity to participate in what God is doing in small but significant ways if we are alert to what God is doing.
As Taylor writes, “Every morning when you wake up, decide to live the life God has given you to live right now.”
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Nancy Frey serves as the pastor at Listowel Mennonite Church.
