Advent

This upcoming Sunday, December 3, is the First Sunday of Advent. Advent is a time of preparation for the birth of Jesus. But we don’t prepare by wrapping presents or planning the menu for a holiday meal, but by waiting. In Advent, we wait for God-in-Jesus to be born to Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem. But this waiting is an active kind of waiting: it’s much more akin to how children count down the days until their birthday than that feeling of being stuck in a boring classroom or (Zoom) meeting, watching the minute hand go by in excruciating slowness.

During Advent, we look into the darkness and watch expectantly for the Light. We wait in hope for the Christ-child who will bring peace and joy into a world that sorely needs it. We talk about Advent as a liturgical season, but it’s really a practice. And practices are important because they “help us to live out truths that we may have a hard time affirming at the moment” (Martin Copenhaver). Cultivating a practice of gratitude doesn’t mean you will always feel grateful; it just means that you have committed to looking for and naming the good alongside the difficult, tragic, and unfair parts of your life.

Practicing Advent is about practicing seeing God in the world where you might not expect God, like, say, as a baby crying in a manger in Bethlehem. This Advent, St. Anna’s is inviting you to pay attention to where God shows up in your life and in the life of the community around you. To that end, each week we’ll publish a reflection for use at home, with questions to think about and simple activities to help you wait in hope, peace, joy, and love. We’ve also made a Praying in Color Advent calendar available for your use (with suggestions on how to use it). It is our hope that they will help you enter more deeply into Advent. There will be print copies at church and you can also find them here.

And, because sometimes the best way to see where God is is to go where there are people in need and join God in the work She is already doing in the world, we also invite you to participate in two service opportunities. Each year, the Bay Area Crisis Nursery gives away 64,000 diapers, and we will be collecting diapers during Advent to help them help parents–some of which are as young and as poor as Mary and Joseph were.

We’re also going to be joining Braid Mission and the prison ministry at St. Paul’s in San Rafael in writing Cards of Hope and sending a little bit of love and encouragement through the mail to foster youth and incarcerated people. You can make or buy your own cards, or you can take some time during coffee hour on the four Sundays of Advent, when we’ll have cards available in the parish hall. (If you want to participate from home, please contact Rev. Mees at mees@saintannas.org, as there are some rules around what you can send.)

This Advent, we hope you’ll join us in worship and in serving others. Help us spread the light of Christ while we wait for the Light that is Christ.

Rev. Mees Tielens, Curate