Advent begins

Advent is the forgotten season. That’s ok. While the world is already in full swing Christmas mode, with Christmas music, decorations, shopping, and more, the church finally has an opportunity to do something unusual — be countercultural. Advent is a season of waiting and anticipation in a culture that has no concept of what it means to wait. Advent is a season of offering hope and light to a world that is plunged into a deep void of despair.

It’s tough to keep track of the number of mass shootings that happen in this country now. They have become all too common. And our response? “Thoughts and prayers.” Wow. That’s sad and pathetic for a nation that likes to claim it’s so very powerful yet the reality is that we are held hostage at gunpoint (quite literally) to anyone who feels like killing anyone else they have a problem with for whatever reason, or no reason at all. I’m not sure how exactly what we have is freedom — how are we free from the fear of being killed by a fellow citizen at a Walmart, a nightclub, or any other common location just going about our lives? All for what? We have a serious problem in this nation — an addiction to violence and death. A serious mistrust of our fellow citizens. An inability to see others, no matter how different they may be, as worthy of having the same protections as we think we deserve. A society can’t stand when that continues. And that’s not even talking about the complex racial, gender, sexuality issues related to all of this.

The world is in despair, yet Advent offers us a message of hope in spite of it all. Advent…