The (now former) Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Willams, reflects on the season of Advent: https://youtube.com/watch?v=PzTYPeiiSpU&si=b9LoF9b2sOCO02WA
#Advent #AdventSunday #FirstSundayOfAdvent #WatchingAndWaiting #Anglicanism #ChurchOfEngland #EpiscopalChurch
#FirstSundayOfAdvent #TheSeasonOfHope
"At Christmas we celebrate the time God did something absolutely new, something nobody had ever heard before. But who has a God like this one, who comes down from heaven to become a Man Himself?
We do. We have that God—because He has made us His own. And this God who made us and redeemed us now calls us to trust Him."
- #LutheranHour Ministries Advent Devotionals
The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. (Mark 1:1) In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. … And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:1, 14) Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. (Matthew 1:18a)
“True hope is swift, and flies with swallow’s wings” ~ William Shakespeare, Richard III
#Advent #FirstSundayOfAdvent #hope
#Christmas #lightstruck #reflections #silhouette #sunset #birds #nature #SolaceInNature #SilentSunday #ShakespeareSunday
Today is the #FirstSundayOfAdvent. The gospel passage is from Luke and takes place during Holy Week. #Advent begins at the end because it’s good to know where we are going and for what we are preparing.
Also, a new creation is always preceded by chaos.
Hope … a whisper, a spark, curls inside the darkness, waiting to share its first tentative notes, tendrils of flame. As you honor your traditions during this season of myriad religious and pagan holidays, may you find the song of hope in quiet joys.
#Advent #FirstSundayOfAdvent #hope
#Christmas #SimpleThings #QuietJoys #DelightOverDarkness #birds #birdsong #silhouette #nature #SolaceInNature
My photos from today's First Sunday of #Advent at Beacon Hill Church in #MonroeCT.
Click here for the whole set: https://www.flickr.com/photos/nomad7674/albums/72177720313142909/
#church #BeaconHillChurch #BeaconHillMonroe #fellowship #FirstSundayOfAdvent #PotluckDinner
On Sunday, December 3, 2023, we sang to the Lord together Christmas carols and songs of praise for the first Sunday of Advent. Pastor Don gave a children's sermon and a sermon to the adults on "The Real Mary: Woman of Faith" from Luke 1:26-38. Afterwards, we had a potluck luncheon and a brief Congregational Meeting.
God of unveiled truth,
faithful flame
in times of darkened sun and waning moon:
lift up our unknowing hearts,
and waken our sleeping love
to announce the coming dawn
of unexpected peace. AMEN.
— Steven Shakespeare
RT Diana Butler Bass
https://dianabutlerbass.substack.com/p/advent-1
“The four weeks lift up theological themes related to endings — death, judgment, heaven, and hell. As such, Advent was a season of penitence and warning, of confession and fasting, like a 'little Lent.' This reading of Advent emerged in the early Middle Ages, reaching its zenith of spiritual popularity — perhaps not unsurprisingly — in the decades of the Black Death.”
RT Nadia Bolz-Weber
https://open.substack.com/pub/thecorners/p/prophets-of-a-different-story?r=jd3cg&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
“But maybe when our opinions and neurosis and pride and expectations about who we are and what we’ve done and who has hurt us and what we deserve die down…maybe when we just shut the hell up and sit in this quiet of Advent we might begin to see where something else is possible. Something holy and waiting to be born in an unlikely time and place much like the birth of Jesus itself.”
A Guy Named Brian (he/him)
Meteorologist Austen Onek
Cambirdsong
ReverendRef
Mark Chesner
Etta T.
