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“All this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying: ‘Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,’ which is translated, ‘God with us.’”
-Matthew 1:22-23

Hello My Friends,

By the time you read this, we will be in the church season of Advent. That said, I am writing this just prior to Thanksgiving. I am in the throes of planning for Thursday’s gathering of family and friends at our house. For me this includes creating a spreadsheet with several different tabs that include things such as guests who are coming, who is bringing what, timings for cooking, and a list of cleaning / house prep that needs to happen. While this may seem like a lot, we are happy to do it because this is a humbling time of year where we focus on gratitude and thankfulness. To do all this preparation, other things that normally would have held a certain level of importance were set aside. And again, that is ok because the process of getting to Thanksgiving is special as it brings many good memories.

That said, we are now in the season of Advent which is a time to prepare for the celebration of Jesus' birth by reflecting on hope, peace, joy, and love, while also anticipating Christ's second coming. This time, however, is also synonymous with the Christmas season and often convoluted with shopping, hecticness, commercialism, and outright anxiety and stress. Are there things we can do to mitigate the stress of the season? What if we were to be intentional in our habits and time management with Advent where it is less of a “countdown to Christmas” and more of a time for spiritual cleansing and preparation, like cleaning your home for an important guest.

Richard Rohr writes, “What expectations and demands of life can you let go of so that you can be more prepared for the coming of Jesus?” For Thanksgiving, I was willing to put things aside in lieu of preparations. What might be different if we were to do the same thing in Advent?

Can we identify one or two things that maybe can wait until later? Is there additional time we can find to focus on preparation and what the coming of the Lord means to us individually. By removing some of the stressful activities and focusing on the true meaning of Advent our time may be filled with excited anticipation of the coming Lord.

I pray you all have a safe and spirit-filled advent season.


With much love,

-Pastor Brian