In the Waiting We Are Enlarged

The liturgical season of Advent marks the beginning of the Christian year. We light a candle each Sunday through the four weeks leading up to Christmas and read texts and sing songs that remind us to wait for God in Christ to come and fulfill all God’s promises to God’s people. “In our waiting,” writes former All Angels’ parishioner Bobby Gross, “we are enlarged.” Bobby continues:

“In Advent we focus on three ‘comings’ of Christ: his arrival in history as a baby born of Mary, his return in fearsome glory at the end of time and his intermediate entrance into our own lives. During Advent we are engaged by the prophets of Israel–Isaiah, Zephaniah, Micah, Malachi–and their messianic visions. We are confronted by John the Baptists’s stern call to prepare for Jesus by repenting. We are beckoned to walk with Mary and Joseph in their anxiety and expectation. We are sobered by the teachings of Jesus and his apostles on the judgment to come at the end of the age.”*

Beginning Sunday, November 29, All Angels’ will celebrate Advent and practice waiting together for the Lord, preparing the way for his coming afresh in our lives and in the world. We remember that the world is his, as are we, so we wait, we long, for his glorious reign to come “on earth as it is in heaven.” You are warmly invited to join All Angels’ as we wait together this Advent.

*Bobby Gross, Living the Christian Year, p. 38