It is Advent. Over the last few years when I have learned more about Advent, and then joined the Anglican Church, I have a deep love for this season of the Church Year.

It takes some practice to get used to Advent. Once you do, though, you will never want it any other way.
— Fleming Rutledge

I have come to embrace Advent because of the longing I feel each season for the Lord’s Second Coming. It takes Christmas out of the “gentle baby” mode and shifts it into another gear altogether. I am reminded Jesus’ first coming into the world was anything BUT gentle. It was war.

As we wait for his coming again, it is still war.

The Christian life is a call to resistance. — Fleming Rutledge

Advent is in darkness in the northern hemisphere. It is appropriate. We need to be reminded of darkness that tries to consume our world. We need to be delivered of bland Christianity and understand that as Christ was born into conflict, we are called to understand the conflict around us and be prepared. THIS IS ADVENT.

May we be moved in this season to regain our call as the Church. We need a single-minded devotion to the glory of God and the spread of the gospel. We need to be delivered of inner conflict that seems to be occupying our thoughts as the Western Church: wondering who is “in” and who is “out.”

Let us tackle the great problems of the world as the Church! Poverty, hunger, natural calamity, greed, consumerism, environmental degradation, violence, war, and more.

The resistance of God’s people should be directed outward, not consuming itself with its own inward quarrels. — Fleming Rutledge

Advent is here. COME, LORD JESUS!