SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, December 1, 2024

Dear Friends in Jesus –

Happy New Year! This Sunday we join with Christians around the world to begin the season of Advent. We take down the green liturgical colors and replace them with purple – the color of royalty. We leave the season known as ordinary time – as if there is such a time – and we look to celebrate the adventus of the Christ – the coming, the arrival, the in-breaking of God into our world.

JB Phillips, the great translator of the Bible into modern language, writes:

“By far the most important and significant event in the whole course of human history will be celebrated with or without our understanding, at the end of this season, Advent. The towering miracle of God’s visit to this planet on which we live will be glossed over, brushed aside or rendered impotent by over-familiarity. Even by the believer the full weight of the event is not always appreciated. His faith is in Jesus the Christ – he believes with all his heart that this man who lived and died and rose again in Palestine was truly God incarnate. He may have some working experience that the man Jesus is still alive, and yet be largely unaware of the intense meaning of what he believes.”

We will engage scripture and our personal experiences to plumb the depth, the wonder, the glory of what we claim and who claims us.