Today was the first Sunday of Advent. The Season of Advent is when Christians prepare to honor the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. It is a special time of preparation, anticipation, and joyful thanksgiving for the coming of the Christ, the Anointed One. The word Advent comes from the Greek word adventus which means “a coming”. The roots of this season date back as far as the sixth century CE.
I attended services this morning at a small church near the center of the State of Ohio. Gathered with about thirty people, the first lesson was read from the prophet Isaiah: “Yet, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay and you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand” (Isaiah 64:8) I was reminded of a couple of times in my life when I had the good fortune to work with clay on a potter’s wheel. The process of turning a piece of lumpy clay into a bowl is much more difficult than I originally had thought. To form a pot takes careful attention, a skilled hand, and the willingness of the clay to be shaped and molded to the potter’s wishes and desires. I sat in church this morning wondering how willing am I to be formed and shaped by the potter’s hands? Do I insist more on my own way? Or do I allow myself, free myself, to become all that potter desires?
Lord, help me in this season of preparation to be placed in your hands – shape and mold me as you desire – that I may become all that you are calling me to be.
Brian
Advent
Todd Outcalt
The leaves have at last slipped from the trees
And capped the snail trails along the concrete steps,
With winter tasks completed, windows caulked
Beside the smooth inebriations of chimney smoke.
And capped the snail trails along the concrete steps,
With winter tasks completed, windows caulked
Beside the smooth inebriations of chimney smoke.
We feel a portent wafting on cold breeze:
An omen marked by frost upon the panes.
The wind snatches the notes that we once spoke,
And in the silence children huddle like refrains.
An omen marked by frost upon the panes.
The wind snatches the notes that we once spoke,
And in the silence children huddle like refrains.
The fires are stoked, the quilts folded with ease
Around the margins like an envelope,
And every hearth that opens its mouth to sing
Emits a fear not greater than its hope.
Around the margins like an envelope,
And every hearth that opens its mouth to sing
Emits a fear not greater than its hope.
Source: The Christian Century (Dec. 14 2010)
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