The Advent Season--Get Ready for the World’s Best News!

Advent and Christmas is a time to live into what God has promised, and promises to yet do for us. It is a time to know the hope, peace, joy and love of God that comes from a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. If you are experiencing the Christmas blues (which many do), just come to church here at Sneads Ferry Presbyterian Church and worship with us. Look and listen to the children with the eyes of your spirit and see the face of God in their faces. Listen to the conversations of folks around you and observe the smiles of unlikely friends who really love each other because they have been moved and filled with the Holy Spirit. Listen to the wonderful Advent and Christmas music that is sung by several different choirs (adults and children) and played by different handbell groups. Come to the Christmas Concert on December 15 at 5:00 p.m. (first come first serve — overflow in the new Fellowship Hall for late comers) or to worship on December 8 and observe the Children’s

Christmas pageant. Celebrate the ordination and installation of new elders during the worship services (12/15 and one more Sunday). Watch and reflect as we light the Advent Wreath each of the four Sunday’s of Advent and then celebrate the lighting of the Christ Candle on Christmas Eve at 5 p.m. (again: first come first serve and overflow for late comers in the new Fellowship Hall). You are encouraged to join the Adult Sunday School class as we study a Max Lucado Advent book, Because of Bethlehem.

Below is a discussion of the meaning of Advent. I hope that you will read and reflect on this and perhaps discuss with a friend. I am going to have a longer version of The Meaning of Advent printed and available in the Narthex.

Advent Season, the four weeks before Christmas, is a time to get ready. During advent, we

prepare to celebrate Jesus’ birth at Christmas, we receive the risen Christ who comes to us in Word and Spirit, and we await with hope Christ’s coming in final victory.

Advent is from the Latin adventus, which means “coming.” Prophets announced the coming of a Savior:

For a child was born for us, a son given to us... (Isa. 9:6)

Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, said of John:

You, child, will be called the prophet of the most high: For you will go before the lord to prepare his ways... By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. (Luke 1:76-79)

During Advent we become one with those who waited in darkness for the revealing of God’s light and who dared to hope that God’s salvation could come in the birth of a child. As we re-live the story each year, we gain new and deeper understanding of the meaning of Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany. We celebrate God’s gift of Jesus Christ and give thanks.

The challenge of Advent.

In our world, Christmas has become a commercial event. During Advent we are challenged to reclaim the customs that help us celebrate God’s gift of love in Jesus and to avoid or curtail those things that stand in the way. Gifts, cards, and parties need to express love, not obligation, and they need to extend beyond our immediate circle of family and friends to those who most need love and care.

How are you waiting actively for the light of Christ to change the world, your world? Think about answering that question in a journal during this 2024 Advent Season. How does this time of waiting become a challenge in this day and time? Do you still find hope, peace, joy and love in God’s promise as you wait for its full completion in Christ?

Merry Christmas

Rev. Dr. Steve Fitzgerald

December 2024