My scriptures for this third week of Advent are Psalms 146:5-10, 1 Samuel 2:1-8, and Luke 3:1-18
I want to start by being very honest, I am not a big Christmas person, I don’t get excited when I start seeing and thinking of decorating, I honestly don’t enjoy Christmas songs and most Christmas movies don’t excite me. I think it’s fine and I understand why people get excited about the season, but I don’t. Maybe I am jaded by the way capitalism has exploited every aspect of Christmas and made most of those things hollow. I know that that isn’t what Christmas is about, but it is what surrounds us in our current western culture.
That all said, the one thing that I derive from this holiday is the idea of hope and the scriptures that are a part of this third week of advent help to reiterate that for me. It’s a hope that is in redemption and not just the one people get at an altar call to get “ born again “ , but in a world lost in despair. One where those who are exploited and crushed by the powers that be, are redeemed, where the hungry are hungry no more, the sick are healed, the prisoners are set free, and justice flows like a river.
The child born in a cave in occupied Palestine all those years ago was meant to signal that hope was alive and well and redemption was nigh. That that rreminder comes during the darkest time of the year, just after the winter equinox when days are in a way reborn and the light begins to overcome the darkness ( at least for those of us in the northern hemisphere) is not lost in that hope , nor is it lost that that hope springs when despair is plentiful.
See it’s the promise of new birth that brings us hope. That new birth could be a child, it could be a new day for our lives, a change in the way we live or how we approach our world. The world we currently living in could use the hope of a new birth because despair seems to be on the rise. We need hope and Christmas is the time that that hope is most palpable.
Do my dear siblings hold on to hope even if it is the only thing we have and let that new birth bring new life in us all.
Merry Christmas to you all
Written by Kelly with, Markie, Juniper, Shoshana, and Neal your Servant Council
In Grace,Kelly Tague
May all beings be filled with lovingkindness.
- May all be well.
- May all be peaceful and at ease.
- May all be happy.
-Buddhist Lovingkindness Prayer