Filtered by:

Series: Advent 2023

Clear
Series Details

Advent 2023

December 10, 2023 - December 18, 2023

Advent is a time of waiting. We wait with a sense of yearning for love to break into our world. Our waiting happens in the dead of winter. And our celebration of Christmas follows the longest night of the year. That night is often called the winter solstice. Up until the winter solstice, night arrives earlier and earlier each day. Leaves have fallen; the earth freezes; the night is still. We begin attending to our inner life. At this still point, love breaks in. From the night of Jesus’ birth on, the days become longer and the world begins to warm up. Life grows beneath the soil. Jesus’ birth is like the surprising crocus, pushing up through snow; it is like a candle lit on a cold winter night and placed in the snow; it is the sudden joy of love breaking into our lives as we wait, still and attentive. During the first Christmas, Palestine suffered under heavy taxation, poverty, and exile in the Roman Empire. It was the long, oppressive weight of Herod’s reign. Herod’s rule sacrificed the people for his own gain. Israel was watching and waiting under this weight, listening for a king who would set things right. In the still of the night, a baby is born, fragile and ready to be loved. A baby is not what they expected. The birth of Jesus is like crowning a king in a whisper. It whispers that the weight will be lifted. A new age is coming—a time when we live under the rule of a king who loves his creation and sacrifices himself for us. And for us, Christmas is, as it was for Ancient Israel under the Roman Empire, a clandestine celebration of the new life of the Kingdom. It is clandestine because we still experience the long reign of sin and oppression in our world; but it is a celebration because we wait for the reign of Jesus in fullness.

Sermons: 2

Sermons in Advent 2023