First Sunday of Advent, Proper 1B, December 3, 2017; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz
Mark 13:24-37 In those days.
O God of grace, may we have the wisdom, the strength, and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth – come when it may and cost what it will.
As you may have already gathered, today is the first Sunday of Advent. In much of the Western church, Advent marks the beginning of the new liturgical year, and focuses on the second coming. (Not so in the Eastern church, where the focus of Advent is on fasting in preparation for the Christmas feast without reference to “The Last Day.”) It’s odd and charming that each year, in the Western church, we prepare for the Second Coming for four weeks, and then we get a celebration of the first coming, the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. It can feel to me a little bit like the football gag in the Peanuts cartoon series, in which Charlie Brown is ever anticipating that this time, Lucy will not move the football that he is preparing to kick. But our Divine sovereign is not like Lucy Van Pelt. Our Holy One is Love.
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