So the blast of winter has now come and at this stage, the weather forecast is predicting snow in Vancouver for this week – I am quite excited!
It is an interesting experience, entering the advent season with the cold weather, rain, scarfs, hats, rain, gloves and more rain here. A bit of a different beat to the drum than the sunny skies, BBQs and beach swims in New Zealand (perhaps not Wellington though!). Christmas carols that we grew up with now seem to make a lot more sense…’winter wonderland’ anyone.. This week I even went to choirs performing Christmas carols in a Pitch Perfect like showdown – I loved it! Streets are filled with Christmas lights adorning houses, with santa and his sleigh deer and plastic blow up snowmen featuring in a lot of front yards.
And yet, it’s also a time of waiting in the advent season..it’s a time of year that I look forward to. However, every year, whether I am now studying or working, life is still full in the midst of the call to watching, waiting, hoping, and expecting. Life is still painful, there is still death and sorrow, there is still injustice and violence in places throughout the world. And yet there is Jesus, Christ incarnate, bringing shalom to the world. Here is a Walter Bruggemann poem for this advent season that expresses this paradox.
In violence and travail
We give you thanks for the babe born in violence.
We give you thanks for the miracle of Bethlehem,
born into the Jerusalem heritage.
We do not understand why the innocents must be slaughtered;
we know that your kingdom comes in violence and travail.
Our time would be a good time for your kingdom to come,
because we have had enough of violence and travail.
So we wait with eager longing,
and with enormous fear,
because your promises
do not coincide with our favourite injustices.
We pray for the coming of your kingdom on earth
as it is around your heavenly throne.
We are people grown weary of waiting.
We dwell in the midst of cynical people,
and we have settled for what we can control.
We do know that you hold initiative for our lives,
that your love planned our salvation
before we saw the light of day.
And so we wait for your coming,
in your vulnerable baby
in whom all things are made new.
Amen.
Breather 