We rightly peered into the darkness, with lament, in our first Advent reflection. It can be hard sometimes to have hope. We are tempted toward anxiety and fear, for ourselves and for our world. Novelist and essayist Marilynne Robinson states flatly: “First, contemporary America is full of fear. And second, fear is not a Christian habit of mind.” She goes on to declare to her secular audience: “Christ is a gracious, abiding presence in all reality, and in him history will finally be resolved.” [1] Paul famously … [Read more...] about Advent Reflection Two: Longing: Come Lord Jesus
Advent Reflection One: Lament: How Long, O Lord?
“Advent is definitely not for sissies,” declares Fleming Rutledge, Episcopal priest and theologian, in her book Advent: The Once and Future Coming of Jesus Christ.[1] Advent is the short[2] but potent liturgical season that dramatizes the “end times”: the second coming, the divine judgment, the undoing and remaking of heaven and earth. Its character is both eschatological and apocalyptic. But here is the kicker, we (humanity) have been living in the end times since the death and resurrection of Jesus, the whole span of … [Read more...] about Advent Reflection One: Lament: How Long, O Lord?