pat loughery

Today is the first Sunday of Advent, that season leading up to Christmas during which the church eagerly anticipates the coming of the Christ.

I’ve been reading a bit from Ancient-Future Time by Robert Webber, which is pretty decent at introducing the non-liturgical church to the liturgical calendar. It’s not a fantastic book, but it’s not bad. In particular for the Advent season, it reminds us that the Advent season is really a time of what I would call Holy Discontent. It’s a time during which we recognize that, with the arrival of Christ (again) still in the future, we are a people of hope, but not a people of realized hope. As we sing, “There must be more than this“.

In our church’s life, this couldn’t be any more true than we sense right now. We’ve recently had three families leave our community for various reasons, and what felt a mere month ago like a small but growing church with momentum now feels like a small and reeling church, desperate to see the life of God within us in a greater way. We’re discontent – not discouraged, but discontent with our current state of communal life.

This can have several effects on us, of course. It can send us into a mode in which we are frenzied, trying to force the hand of God by our own effort. Or it can discourage and paralyze us. Or it can drive us to our knees in prayer, opening our ears as wide as possible. My hope and prayer is that we choose this option in our actions as individuals and community.

We know that the Holy Spirit is out there, somewhere… sometimes flitting among us; sometimes seemingly very distant. We also sense his promise to bless us and empower us for God’s mission among us. And so we continue to press into this personal presence of God, this mysterious person of the Trinity, and express expectant hope and holy discontent. We want More. There must be more than this.

This entry is part of the Grid Blog :: Advent collaboration.