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Advent Guide: A Weary World Rejoices!

We are thrilled to share an Advent Guide and new Artwork by Cody Wood! It has been a weary year. If you are feeling fatigue and despair, won't you light a candle with us through the season of Advent?

An Advent Invitation

On each Sunday through Advent you are invited to light a candle, meditate on a work of art, read scripture and reflect on the invitation for the week ahead.

Traditionally, three purple candles correspond to the liturgical colors for repentance and fasting in preparation for the Christmas feast! A single rose candle is lit on the third Sunday to signify joy and a white candle on Christmas. This guide follows the rhythm of

Hope, Preparation, Joy, Love and Peace.

Consider ringing a bell and beginning each meditation with the words: We ring this bell to announce the good news: The kingdom of God is at hand!

Why Celebrate Advent?

During Advent, we light candles to shine light into a dark and weary world. Cultural rhythms often reduced Christmas to a silent night when a passive baby was born, tender and mild. On the surface, this may feel like a comforting hope for a weary world. But it is not.

Advent interrupts passivity through rhythms of active participation in a revolutionary story prophesied by Isaiah: God, if only you would tear open the heavenly realm and come down!

Advent invites us into Mary’s expectant pregnant pause felt in her own body: that God would tear open the heavenly realm and come down! Magnificent!

Advent invites hope for the second arrival of Jesus. By pacifying the first arrival of Jesus, we sedate our hope for His second coming. Let us light our candles and watch for Him to tear open the heavenly realm and come down!

Advent reminds us that Jesus is king now. In pacifying God’s present kingdom, we miss the ways in which He is tearing open heaven and arriving in our present moments.

Advent invites active Kingdom participation

that offers hope to a weary world.

Advent Guide Download

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