INBOX INSPIRATIONS
December 7, 2022
Advent – 1
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Dear Friends,
During this Advent season, the Old Testament readings call us to place ourselves in the skin of people hundreds of years before the birth of Christ. The prophet Isaiah especially beckons us to prepare for the coming of the One promised by God. Then, John the Baptist in the Advent gospels calls us to get ready for the Messiah. He himself asks Jesus if he is this person.
So, while the Advent Scriptures call us to imagine ourselves in the place of people thousands of years ago, they are really inviting us to do something else. We believe that God’s promise has been fulfilled in Jesus. Now, he, Jesus, the Christ or Anointed One of God, wants to come to us and enter our lives more fully. We can be open to this, to Him, by being Awake, Aware, and Alert.
Awake – God wants us to live life actively, not passively. We are to wake up to each day with thankfulness in our hearts for another day of life. We are to approach each day intentionally, intending to use our time well and to do something that will open us to God and whatever it is that God may be calling us to do.
Aware – God wants us to be aware of the present moment. We are to realize that God may be coming to us in the advice or thoughtfulness, or in the need and suffering of another – a family member, a friend, a person at work. We are to try not to get bogged down by something in the past or anxious about something that may happen tomorrow. Rather, be very aware of the present.
Alert – Some of the people in Jesus’ day rejected him because he was not like what they expected. The example of John the Baptists calls us to be alert to the unexpected. So, we are open to seeing some quality in another that we have never noticed before, or open to a different mindset or way of looking at something. We don’t shut down automatically to the new just because we have never done it that way here before. Rather, we are alert to looking at its value and merits.
I find the alliteration of all of this an easy and helpful way to approach Advent: be Awake,Aware, and Alert.
Father Michael Schleupner
Advent – 2
Waiting
Dear Friends,
Advent is about waiting. In these weeks, we hear Scripture passages about centuries of people waiting for the Messiah. That word, Messiah, means the Anointed One of God, a savior. They had various ideas about what this Messiah would do, but they were all waiting. From our vantage point, we believe that their waiting was fulfilled in the birth of Jesus, the Christ, which also means the Anointed One of God.
Today, as we listen to these Advent Scripture passages, we are also called to wait – to wait not just for Christmas, but to wait for a fuller coming of Christ into our lives. Our waiting is a good thing. But the question pops up: is God also waiting for us?
“Advent is a time to wait for your coming, Lord,
but I wonder –
is it you who’s waiting for me?
Is there something you’re waiting for me to do?”
Is there someone in my family who is estranged and is God waiting for me to reach out and try to reconnect? Is my son or daughter struggling to find their way and is God waiting for me just to listen and understand?
Are my aging parents increasingly alone and is God waiting for me to make some commitment to touch base with them regularly? Is a neighbor a few houses away grieving the loss of her husband and is God waiting for me to invite her to dinner?
Is God waiting for me to slow down a bit and to make at least a little time for Him? On the other hand, is God waiting for me to stop saying so many prayers and be still enough to listen to him speaking to me?
So, yes, Advent is a time of waiting. We wait for Christmas and the celebration of the birth of Jesus. We wait for God’s fuller coming to us. But God is also waiting for us, maybe in ways we have never imagined.
Father Michael Schleupner
Quotation and inspiration for some of the above from A Concord Pastor Comments.
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