1. What does it mean?

    1. Two Advents—waiting for Christmas is part of it, but also waiting for Jesus to come again
    2. Incarnation: The same Jesus that came to us in the manger will come to be with us again at the end of all things

  2. Advent themes

    1. Preparation

    2. Rapture theology vs. God’s power over injustice

      1. Twentieth century theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) wrote, “Advent season is a season of waiting, but our whole life is an Advent season, that is, a season of waiting for the last Advent, for the time when there will be a new heaven and a new earth.” He penned these words in a letter to his parents, while he sat in prison, jailed for his resistance efforts against Hitler’s regime.

      II. Bishop Will Willimon summarizes the Advent tension this way:

      If you tell me, living in Durham [N.C.] with two healthy, well-fed, well-futured children, “This world is ending. [God is physically breaking into human history to liberate us from the oppressions of this world.] God has little vested interest in the present world order,” I shall hear it as bad news.

      However, for a mother in a barrio in Mexico City who has lost four of her six children to starvation to hear, “This present world is not what God had in mind. God is not finished, indeed is now moving, to break down and to rebuild in Jesus,” I presume that would sound something like gospel.

  3. Saint Philip Neri once wrote, ‘Beginners in religion ought to exercise themselves principally in meditation on the Four Last Things.’

    1. Death
    2. Judgment
    3. Heaven
    4. Hell (not in the Dante’s Inferno way, but in the fear of the absence of God way)

  4. Advent Scripture Lesson likely to get left out of the sermon

    You know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires. Romans 13:11-14

    Further thoughts: what if these are hindrances to watchful community, not purity or behavior modification-righteousness?

  5. Advent Prayers from Black Liturgies: Prayers, Poems, and Meditations for Staying Human by Cole Arthur Riley

    To be read in solitude or as a collective

    God of the long wait,

    We take hope, knowing you are a God whose movement is not dependent on our ability to perceive it. Remind us that your wait in the womb of Mary was not time wasted but an intimate beginning in mystery, growth, and dependency. Let our own waiting be the same, that we would find ourselves able to trust our communities to sustain us, entering a safe and sacred interdependence for all parts. As we wait for healing and liberation—in our-selves, in the world-help us to practice justice, repair, and mercy, never relying on the divine to absolve us of our collective and individual responsibility. And let us wait in mystery, believing that those who think they are in control of this world are not, and that oppression will not prevail. Help us to be at rest with the un-knowing, that we would trust the secret of Mary's womb, realizing we aren't entitled to knowledge or clarity, but are still held in love. Let us feel that even here you are moving, you are growing our way to life and healing. Protect us from despair as we wait for liberation. Amen.

    Breathe

    INHALE: I grow weary of waiting.

    EXHALE: God, keep me from despair.