Dear brothers & sisters in Christ,
Well, here we are at the threshold of coming home together. Every Advent finds each one of us in a different place than were in the previous year. Things change whether we like it or not. Our choice is not to try and control the outcome as much as to control our responses to life’s changes. Mary and Joseph must have dealt with hardship and doubt along their journey to the manger scene in Bethlehem. They especially dealt with the unknown the closer they came to the birth of God’s child into their family. I suspect it was their faith that kept them going when the going got tough. I imagine they could have chosen a different path than the one God put them on. They truly waited on the Lord for direction! Suppose Mary and Joseph had chosen a path different than God’s path. I wonder where they would have ended up. Would the magi have found them? What if Herod had found the baby Jesus? Would we still be having Christmas?
I know we’re not quite to Christmas day. We still have a shared journey together at Calvary during this Advent season. Advent is about traveling home like Mary and Joseph did. We too are trying to find our way home while seeking direction from God.
I heard a story recently about a man who was often forgetful. Sometimes he would be out running errands and begin to wonder where he needed to go next. One time he had run out of ideas for his next stop so he called his wife to help him recall his list of places to visit that day. When he asked where he needed to be, his wife said, “HOME”!
Similarly we can be in the mode of going to so many places in the next month. We can be too busy for God and too distracted to check and see if we’re on the path God has made for us. Our attempts at leading a faith journey can be like throwing out the option of asking for directions altogether because of our pride. No maps or MapQuest searches. We can guess which way to go all we want, if what we want is a tour of wrong turns and dead end roads. God has already mapped out the course. We just need to enter the search and soon enough we can right our direction. Advent is about our coming home. We could skip Advent and go straight to a series of Christmas celebrations and dinner parties. However it is the shared journey leading up to Christmas that helps us arrive at home at all. Whenever we worship together we are waiting on the Lord together. Whenever we take Eucharist together we are celebrating the feasts of feasts. Whenever we enjoy fellowship with one another we are making room for God to dwell in our otherwise crowded lives of checklists and daily to-dos. My prayer for us is that we’ll embrace this Advent season and the new journey together it represents. I hope that each Sunday is an opportunity for us to worship our loving God who is our ultimate destination and home. Please join me this Advent in our collective journey filled with waiting on God, reorienting our direction if needed, and celebrating the joy that is in Christ’s presence in our lives. And – Remember this month is also a wonderful time to invite and/or re-invite parishioners and newcomers to worship at Calvary. God knows who they are and may be waiting on us to bring them home to Calvary.
Advent blessings,
Fr. Jon
