First Sunday in Advent

Prayer:     Return O Lord and deliver our souls for the sake of Your love.   Help us to keep our eyes and our thoughts always upon You.   Amen.

Advent is the beginning of our Church year.   Since 7AD,  Christians around the world have celebrated Advent.    Advent is a Latin word that means “Coming”.  For Christians around the world advent is the time to remember the coming of Christ – of the light of the world.    Each Advent season we prepare our hearts and our minds for the coming of the Christ Child.   In our worship, four Sundays before Christmas,   Presbyterian congregations bring out the Advent Wreath and Candles and use the Presbyterian World Service and Development Advent Liturgy.  

Yet Advent is more than just preparing for Christmas – for the birth of the Christ Child and the Christmas baking and the Christmas shopping and writing the Christmas letter.  Advent is a time for us to celebrate Advent in our own homes and in our daily lives.   It is a time for us to realize that Christ has come,  Christ is coming,  Christ will come again.  

 

When family calls  us up and says they are coming to stay with us for a week,  what do we do?  We prepare our homes for our family.   We clean up the house,  we make up the beds and lay out the guest towels.   We store up on more food and bake awesome cookies. 

Preparing for the coming of the Christ Child is greater than preparing our homes for the coming of relatives.   How much more must we do for Advent?  Over these next four weeks,  we will prepare our hearts and souls and minds for the coming of the light of the world – Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour.

 

Prayer:  Divine Healer,  keep us awake and alert as we prepare for the coming again of Your kingdom.  Keep us strong in faith so that we may greet the Christ Child with joy and praise.  Amen.