Advent Anticipation

By on December 1, 2019.

Source: GENEralities
Advent Anticipation
So here we are. Black Friday o’er. It’s Advent Sunday and we enter our annual spiritual and liturgical waiting room—in which we’re encouraged to pause and be reminded that, not only did Jesus come to save us the first time, he is also coming again and for keeps one day. So, stay awake, Jesus says, be ready. Don’t allow yourself to be distracted. For example, since it’s Advent, make sure all your waiting room “magazines” are appropriate and up to date. Waiting isn’t easy but when what is coming is as good as what the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is offering in the power of the Holy Spirit, it’s worth it. I always think of the old Heinz Ketchup television commercial at this time of year—so thick and good that it takes a long, long time to come out of the bottle. We see the bottle poised over the plate full of promise as we hear Carly Simon singing her song, Anticipation. The first verse goes:  We can never know about the days to come But we think about them anyway And I wonder if I’m really with you now Or just chasin’ after some finer day.She wasn’t singing about Jesus, of course, or ketchup, for that matter. We can never know about the days to come, either, except that Holy Scripture has given us some solid hints. Enough to think and pray about—to anticipate and prepare ourselves and stay awake as we wait. And another difference is that we don’t have to wonder if we’re really with Jesus now. He has promised that he is with us now in our Advent waiting rooms and not just on some “finer day” in the future—now, for ever and always. And whenever Jesus is present things taste better. So here we are: faithfully anticipating, hoping, waiting and expecting by observing an holy Advent and, in the meantime, as we wait for another Christmas. This an extract from from the Winter issue of Taste and See…, Anglican Renewal Ministries (ARM) Canada’s quarterly magazine. You can subscribe here. 

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