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Overview
Advent is a time of preparation, of patience, of remembering what grounds and sustains us. Advent reminds us who God is and who we are meant to be. This book offers a new look at Advent by seeing the four weeks through the lens of morning, mid-day, late afternoon and evening, and night. Photographs, stories, and perspectives enrich our travel and invite us to other dimensions of experiencing Advent, as a season and as a resource in our daily living. The book can serve as a devotional for individuals and small-group study for the Advent season, with a particular focus on the Year C Gospel readings from Luke.
• Advent devotion for individuals or small groups, with an Advent poster-calendar sold separately
• Photographs and stories from daily life, for daily Christian living
• Study guide included
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780819232182 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Morehouse Publishing |
| Publication date: | 09/01/2015 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 144 |
| File size: | 293 KB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Advent Presence
Kissed by the Past, Beckoned by the Future
By Melford "Bud" Holland
Church Publishing Incorporated
Copyright © 2015 Melford HollandAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8192-3218-2
CHAPTER 1
DAY 1
Patience
I welcome you to a holy journey in these weeks ahead. On this First Sunday of Advent, we hear the call for patience. Our Gospel reading for today from Luke 21 evokes a sense of hope and anticipation as we await the "Son of Man coming in a cloud with great glory" (v. 27). Jesus assures us (v. 35) that the day will come for everyone in which the scriptures will be fulfilled; the whole cosmos will be involved in redemption. We need to "Be alert at all times" (v. 36), which requires great patience.
Advent is a time of re-creating an old sacred journey. The setting aside of these days was an attempt as early as the third century to prepare yet again for the coming of Christ in our hearts. What does it mean that God sent God's Son into the world to be born in human flesh? How might we take some time to reflect on this incredible gift and lay again the foundation to receive this truth into the fabric of our lives, the crevices of our souls and spirits, and the life-blood of our bodies? It is in the experience of Advent that we can open ourselves to be yet again surprised by the joy of birth and to see that this birth is about another birthing within us. Let us look at each day of Advent to see ways our daily living intersects with the joyful, hopeful expectation of this birth, and how this birth is already presenting itself in the way we view life, ask questions, and contemplate life's persistent challenges.
Many years ago I experienced heart arrhythmia. It happened unexpectedly on a Sunday morning just as I was awakening from sleep. After an extensive checkup, nothing was found that could have caused that condition to materialize. Over the next few years it occurred on other occasions at the same time of day with the same checkup and results. While it has been ten years since the last episode, one of the gifts of those occurrences is that I welcome each new day with great gratitude. Today is a gift beyond measure. What might I do, be, accomplish, try on, explore, or give thanks for on this day?
In the Christian calendar, this first day of Advent is the beginning of a new year. For some of us our hearts can be pounding with anticipated meetings and deadlines. They also may be pounding with excitement about seeing an old friend or anticipated time with a family member. Or perhaps this day reminds us of a loss or worry that can sometimes envelop our hearts, breaking them yet again and again. Advent can also be a time when we remember our histories and recall when a yearning for a messiah was on the lips of many and a hoped-for rescue from bondage was sought. Who is the messiah for whom we wish? What might happen if the messiah becomes present? So what seems like a split second, our present-moment thoughts might welcome both past and future hope.
As tempted as we might be to draw conclusions, jump into the future, or make something happen, today we can pause and wait for something to happen in our hearts, our prayers, our spirits, our relationships, and our observations of the world around us and within us. For many of us this is becoming increasingly hard to do. There is so much that can cause us fear, anxiety, and impatience to want to make something happen. Perhaps we might choose to follow a different path if only for a little while today and over the next few weeks. It just might make all the difference in what we observe.
When I worked in New York City, I often stayed in the City because it was easier than tackling the commute (two to two-and-a-half hours each way). But when I did go to Penn Station for my train, I often noticed the crowds increasing and the pace of walking quicken the closer I came to the station. By the time I got to the stairs or escalator, it was a mad rush. I often wondered why I and others were paying the price for someone else being late for the train as they were rushing and pushing to get to the track. Of course, I was on occasion that person myself. Where did patience go in this picture? The same is true on the road as cars hug our bumpers, drivers honk at us at every turn, and at the end of a run as we are stopped yet again I notice there are only a few cars ahead.
After 9/11 there was a strange silence in the City for several weeks. I heard no horns being blown. Yes, there were many sirens of emergency vehicles, but little or no sounds from other drivers. There seemed to be a moment of respect, giving way, and patience in our collective suffering and shock that honored the fact that we needed to go into an interior space to come to some initial terms with what had happened to us in our external world. After time, the noise and impatience returned, but the memory of that earlier time is always within me. It gives me hope that people can rise to the occasion, on occasion, and offer space for others to grieve, integrate, and reflect on their lives.
The yearning for the coming of a Messiah was palpable in the hundreds of years leading up to the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. The Jews felt assured that God would not abandon them. They also believed that God was active in history so that historical events took on special significance for them. These hopes were ignited even more with the revolt of Judas Maccabeus in the middle of the second century bce, and were both challenged and heightened further after the Romans took over the land 100 years later.
So we may sing on this day: O Come, O Come Emmanuel. We are in the present moment, kissed by the past, and being beckoned to the future.
Reflect
1. What might your experience of patience and impatience have to say about what is brewing inside your life and spirit?
2. How can we keep our impatience at bay just long enough to stand in the whirlwind of these questions and be present to a new birth just waiting to be birthed within us?
3. How can the Christ that we yearn for be born again and again in our hearts?
CHAPTER 2DAY 2
Questions
As I connect with individuals and groups, I hear many important questions. Some of the recurring questions are these: Who am I? Who are you? Who are we? Whose are we? Who is the "we" that we yearn to be? What is our task/ vocation/mission in life? How do we proceed? How do we know we are proceeding? Are we there yet? These are the most important questions of our lives.
We live in a world of complex contexts. That is saying the obvious, but it is even more complex than we can imagine. I remember growing up in a little village in West Virginia. Our fathers and some mothers worked for the company that owned our homes, had a grocery story, sponsored the Little League baseball teams, offered a summer camp, and hosted an outing at an amusement park once a year. When I was in elementary school, we moved several times on the same street. We were all in the same economic class; we lived in segregated housing and communities in those early years. On the surface it seemed fairly predictable. The crime rate was virtually nonexistent. There was some bootlegging going on and more than occasional fights with other guys. But there was also a lot of pulling together and being proud of being West Virginians.
My family was small in one sense: father, mother, sister, and myself. But it was huge in other ways: twenty-one first cousins grew up in that village as my parents' families settled there to work at the plant or in the mines. There were large numbers of children there in proportion to the overall population. All of us lived around a road, a railroad track, a river, and the mountains. One could drive down Route 60 and think that life was on an even keel and not very complex. Yet it was far from simple or predictable.
Complexities came in many ways: the levels of segregation and racism that were persistent in the valley as with other communities; the layers of management in the plants and mines that were seen as inherently unfair; the pollution of the plants (the valley had the highest percentage of death by cancer in the whole country); the resources that were stripped from the land and taken out of state; economic stagnation; and the families with young children who had moved elsewhere. I came to realize that our life was complex and difficult on many fronts when our family visited my grandparents about forty miles away. I would ascend the hillside above town and look down into the valley. Both venues offered some opportunities to reflect in new ways.
From this small segment of reality to the much larger pictures of a global village, we know that our lives are complex beyond our full understanding. We are pulled in many directions with many voices seeking to tell us who we are. This reality becomes intensified in the Advent season where life around us quickens and the pace of decision making on many levels is breathtaking.
It may be especially appropriate in this first week of Advent to engage in the following questions: Who am I? Who are you? Who are we together? Whose are we (who do we belong to)? Who is the "we" that we yearn to be? What is our vocation, mission, or task in life? How do we proceed with our lives? How do we know we are moving forward? And are we there yet? These questions are identity questions, relational questions, mission and direction of life questions, evaluative questions, and wondering questions. The questions, though separate, intertwine with one another and form a new mosaic from which to enter this journey again. They are indeed life questions.
One of the questions young children ask is, "Why?" How often did I brush by this question with my children by saying, "Because I said so" or "Why not?" Questions can feel irritating, yet they offer a window into others' thinking and new ground for exploration. In my early years when I began to think, foolishly, that I had many of the answers to life's persistent questions, I learned that I did not.
"Why did God allow my son to die?" This question has haunted me for many years since I was asked it at the bedside of a young boy who died so unexpectedly and so young. I responded, "I do not know. But I do believe that God loves your son and all of us more than we can imagine." I believe that to be true. We don't have all the answers for sure. We live in mystery, hope, faith, and a willingness (or not) to stand in the whirlwind of life ourselves and with others. Questions beget questions.
Sometimes there is another way of relating without questions and that has to do with feelings and what we sense is going on within us and within others. Now that I am getting older I hear myself asking yet again, "Why?"
Scripture is filled with questions. Perhaps the most repeated verses in the Bible have to do with fear. Be not afraid. May we be not so afraid that we might be open to the questions, the feelings, and the senses of life happening around and between us. May we take the time to seize the day and explore it to the fullest. It just may make all the difference.
Reflect
1. Who are you? Whose are you?
2. Who do you long to be?
3. What are the most compelling questions of your life?
CHAPTER 3DAY 3
Déjà Vu
The beginning of Advent focuses on the ministry of John the Baptist. The Gospel of Luke places John's ministry in its context in history and reminds us that the prophet Isaiah had foretold that John would come to prepare the way of the Lord. Part of the preparation John brought was a call to conversion, a call to turn in a new direction. This radical call guides our preparation for a new day.
I remember taking our oldest son on a college exploration trip. It was a wonderful experience and one replicated with our other children. As we drove through one town he said, "I have just had a Vujà dé experience." Now he was very bright and gifted in speech. I tenderly said to him, "You must have meant a Déjà vu experience." "No," he says, "a Vujà dé experience." I then said, "Okay, what is a Vujà dé experience?" He replied, "I am sure that I have never had this experience of seeing this town before." We laughed and drove on thinking that indeed he had passed in many ways.
We come to Advent with both a Déjà vu and Vujà dé experience. On the one hand we have been here before, even if we have not recognized that it was Advent. It is the time of the preparation for Christmas, that rushed time between Thanksgiving and Christmas, that hurtles us toward a known and unknown experience; a time when we (in the Northern Hemisphere) begin to sense a chill in the air. It is the season when college football goes into bowl mode, basketball begins to flourish, professional football gets close to deciding who will be in the playoffs, Christmas decorations occupy our common space and homes, Congress goes on a long vacation, and some movies are rushed into distribution to make the cut for consideration of future awards (and to reap monetary benefits of a holiday showing). The list could go on and on. It is a rhythm that is out of our control, yet one in which we have some control regarding how it affects us. Yet even in its yearly predictability it comes to us ever new. We live a life that is both Déjà vu and Vujà dé.
Advent is such a Déjà vu and Vujà dé experience. The biblical readings circle back round every three years to catch our hearing just enough to know we have heard them before, and yet are fresh enough to meet us in a new place of hearing. The story line is the same with some variances. The issue of balancing a yearned-for time for reflection and meditation with the internal drive to replicate patterns and customs of years gone by pull and push us toward competing "wants." We might feel driven and want to retreat at the same time. It is a time when we look forward, look backward, and look down to see what ground we are standing upon. In this regard it mimics life at its depth and breadth as much as any season. What is our life about, we might ask — it is about living Advent.
Advent, that season where we are kissed by the past, beckoned by the future, and drawn to our present moments, is now in its third day. It is Tuesday, that non-descript day of the week that seems to have no other tag on it. Mondays — we either love them or hate them. Many now call Wednesdays "hump days" where we cross over the beginning of a work-week and begin thinking about the freedom of a weekend. A new trend in social media is to call Thursdays "Throwback Thursdays," as a time to remember the past by sharing pictures of years gone by. Fridays are the entrance to a weekend and as such bring a new step to our walk. And then there are Tuesdays. What do you make of this Tuesday in your life?
Tuesday has such a mixed review in our history. The name Tuesday derives from the Old English Tiwesdæg and literally means "Tiw's Day" from the Old English word for god or deity. In some Slavic languages the word Tuesday originated from a word meaning "the second." In the Eastern Orthodox Church, Tuesdays are dedicated to John the Baptist.
With such a variation of meanings, what meaning do we want to attach to this Tuesday? Can we connect them to God, or a "turning around" as John the Baptist calls us to? The beauty of life is that we are often given the opportunity to name something, redefine a circumstance, and embrace the possibilities that life brings. Such is the opportunity for us today. How might we see the extraordinary within the ordinary, the possibility of forgiveness within the woundedness, hope within despair, laughter within foibles, creation within destruction, welcome within loneliness, hospitality within shunning, or openness within judgment?
Tuesday can be a day when we can come to terms that we are within a work week and we can either be chagrined by it or embrace it. In a way it represents life without other tags. We might feel at times that we are like John the Baptist, crying in the wilderness, but we can remember that John chose that way of life for himself — a life of repentance (turning around) and a life that pointed to a greater life that was coming into the world.
A number of years ago a friend visited with me just after Easter. He shared a couple of things that I have never forgotten. He said, "I wish you would slow down a bit as you passed average a long time ago." After both of us paused, he added, "I have two bits of good news to share with you. The Messiah has come. And you are not the one!" I can be so driven (even in my laid back way) that I believe life around me is so important for me to affect that I can lose perspective of where I am and who I am.
Tuesday holds promise to be a day where we see ourselves realistically. And as we do we can see that we too do not have to be "messiahs," yet each one of us is extraordinary in our own right. There has never been someone like you and there never will be again.
May your day be filled with Déjà vu and Vujà dé experiences.
Reflect
1. Today might be a time to begin keeping a journal during Advent to record your thoughts and feelings, new sightings and insights, and identify yet more questions you would like to explore. What should be written today?
2. When have you felt like John the Baptist, crying in the wilderness? What would your cry be today?
3. When you have had such experiences, how did you feel and what did you learn?
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Advent Presence by Melford "Bud" Holland. Copyright © 2015 Melford Holland. Excerpted by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Introduction,The First Week of Advent — Beginnings: Where Are We?,
Day 1: Patience,
Day 2: Questions,
Day 3: Déjà Vu,
Day 4: The Present of Presence,
Day 5: A New Start,
Day 6: Now What?,
Day 7: Where Is This Leading Me?,
The Second Week of Advent — Discovery: Who Are We?,
Day 8: Look Around, Look Behind,
Day 9: Discovering Our Identity,
Day 10: People of the Gathering,
Day 11: People of the Table,
Day 12: People of the Dismissal,
Day 13: Reengaging Contexts,
Day 14: Accomplishments and Gifts,
The Third Week of Advent — Commitment: Whose Are We Now?,
Day 15: Celebrating Anyway,
Day 16: Whose Are We and Whose Am I?,
Day 17: Endings and Beginnings,
Day 18: Who Is the "We" We Yearn to Be?,
Day 19: What Is My Vocation?,
Day 20: Routines and Priorities,
Day 21: Circling Back,
The Fourth Week of Advent — Night: What Are the Possibilities?,
Day 22: Light and Shadow,
Day 23: In Search of Certainty,
Day 24: Darkest Before Light,
Day 25: A Pentecost Presence,
Day 26: Let It Be,
Day 27: Last Day,
Conclusion: In Continuance,
Notes,