Advent Thoughts

What is Advent?

You see a lot of articles and posts about Advent around this time of year. Advent is simply "coming." Notice, I said, "simply." There are a lot of other long explanations about what Advent is and the origins as well as the deeply spiritual implications of it all, but might I just share some of my observations...

I might have said this before, but life is a homecoming. We do everything we do so that we may come home. Sure we are equipped for great things, but in the end, we are always coming home. Life is a homeward journey and every experience takes us a step closer to that that continuing city. Think about all of the imagery that involves someone coming to us in Advent. Christ comes to us. We are to "come to the mountain of the Lord." All of these lead to a blissful inheritance about which we know only little.

Let's talk about the mountain of the Lord. I am no biblical scholar, just a wanna-be. However, I do know that in the Old Testament, when the mountain was involved, it was a big deal. Consider the people of Israel and the Sinai Mountain. It is there that people truly learned of God coming to them through the Law. Think of Mount Carmel. Elijah and the people of Israel witnessed God's mighty acts of salvation that day. And now, in the second chapter of Isaiah, we have this prophet saying, "Come to the mountain of the Lord." Something big must be happening again. Only, we know that this is not physical mountain. This is real... this is the place, the habitation of the Lord and his people. He claims us, all of us, for his own and he will put away war, and malice. To borrow from later imagery, he will wipe every tear from our eye, and there will be no more death and separation. Just as God came to the people of Israel in the Law at Mount Sinai, and he came to the people of Israel at Mount Carmel, he comes to us, all of us in Jesus Christ. The mountain of the Lord is a place of unity with God through Christ.

So life is a coming home. Coming home to the Mountain of the Lord. Simple thoughts from a simple person.

"Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen." Prayer for the First Sunday of Advent