November 26thFirst Advent
To my dear TFMC family,
Christmas music has started early in our house this year. Usually, we’ve tried to reserve Christmas music and decorations for First Advent, but Chloe for the last couple of years has really enjoyed the Christmas season, and demands early on that we play Christmas music. So I’m becoming re-acquainted with Raffi’s Christmas album, Sharon, Lois and Bram’s Christmas album, and who knew, Fred Penner’s Christmas album. The Christmas music has started early this year.
Our theme for Advent is the songs of Christmas, or, as they’re more formally known, the Canticles of Christmas. The gospel of Luke in particular, some of the readings which we love, aren’t just poetry or readings, but are songs sung to God. Songs that, in some way, speak more deeply than the words simply would on their own.
And we know this to be true. There are many songs that we sing that move us in different ways. Songs of Celebration and Joy connect with our spirits in ways that simply reading the lyrics can’t. Songs of sorrow, grief, and pain, help us to express the inner world of our aching hearts. Songs of hope and promise, lift our spirits and lead us to imagine what could be.
This week, we begin with songs of promise, and I’ll admit, I’m fudging the numbers a bit here, because the scripture we’re reflecting on aren’t songs, they’re prophecies from Isaiah, but I believe that they form the foundation for some of our songs of hope and promise. These prophecies from Isaiah tap into our longings for things to change and turn, and tap into our prayers for ‘God to do something.”
The promise that God shares through Isaiah, grants us a glimpse of God’s Dream and how God was going to accomplish it. We have the benefit of hindsight, the box lid to a puzzle, if you will, of how God was at work, putting those pieces together to craft an image of what God was doing in the first century. But how about now?
We don’t have the benefit of a picture showing us how God is going to act, but we have a promise, a promise telling us that this is not the end of things, this is not how God intends creation to end up, and that God is doing something. God is at work. God’s promise is a vision of what could be and what will be. A place where war is known no more, where weapons of destruction are turned into tools of creation. A time when old animosities are set aside, where creation lives in true harmony with one another, and where the gap between heaven and earth no longer exists.
This Advent season, we remember this promise of God’s. We remember that it has happened once before in Jesus, and that it is promised to happen again, in Christ’s return. This is our hope.
Yours,
Craig Janzen Neufeld, Pastor