Bishop's 2009 Advent Message
Dear Friends in Christ: By the grace of God we have come once again to the great Season of Advent. Once again the people of God enter a deeply intentional time of profound closure and anticipation, endings and beginnings. We gather week by week to pray that we might by grace cast away the works of darkness and put on the armor of light, so as to rise to the life immortal. We pray for help to forsake our sins, and prepare to greet our Lord with joy. We pray to know the help and deliverance of God's bountiful grace and mercy. We pray to have a pure conscience and to be a worthy place for Christ to dwell. We pray for God to come among us with great might. These petitions from the Collects of Advent are no mere pious rhetoric; they form an agenda for us, a path in the desert. We do well to wonder: What if these prayers were answered? What if we were to get what we ask for? What would our lives look like then? How would they be different? What needs to change? May this holy Season be about more than just getting ready for Christmas, as all-consuming as that can be. May it be instead for us a life-changing time of turning and returning to the One to whom we so boldly and routinely address such eloquent prayers. May we live in the expectation that our prayers are heard, and that we are partners with the living God in making the answers real. Grace and Peace, +Barry |
Return to News
|
