Joan Chittister, Listen with the Heart
THE SEASON of Advent means there is something on the horizon the likes of which we have never seen before… .What is possible is to not see it, to miss it, to turn just as it brushes past you. And you begin to grasp what it was you missed, like Moses in the cleft of the rock, watching God’s [back] fade in the distance. So stay. Sit. Linger. Tarry. Ponder. Wait. Behold. Wonder. There will be time enough for running. For rushing. For worrying. For pushing. For now, stay. Wait. Something is on the horizon.Jan L. Richardson, Night Visions: Searching the Shadows of Advent and Christmas
YOU keep us waiting.You, the God of all time,Want us to waitFor the right time in which to discoverWho we are, where we are to go,Who will be with us, and what we must do.So thank you … for the waiting time.John Bell, quoted in The Westminster Collection of Christian Prayers, compiled by Dorothy M. Stewart
IT WAS NOT suddenly and unannounced that Jesus came into the world. He came into a world that had been prepared for him. The whole Old Testament is the story of a special preparation … . Only when all was ready, only in the fullness of his time, did Jesus come.Phillips Brooks, The Consolations of God: Great Sermons of Phillips Brooks
CHRISTMAS is fast approaching. And now that Christ has aroused our seasonal expectations, he’ll soon fulfill them all!Augustine, Sermon 51, translated by William Griffin in Sermons to the People
ADVENT.Waiting for the end. The eschaton. The night is far spent.Madeleine L’Engle, The Irrational Season
GOD IS COMING! God is coming!All the element we swim in, this existence,Echoes ahead the advent. God is coming! Can’t you feel it?Walter Wangerin, Jr., from “The Signs of the Times,” in The Manger Is Empty
GOD our deliverer, whose approaching birth still shakes the foundations of our world, may we so wait for your coming with eagerness and hope that we embrace without terror the labor pangs of the new age…Janet Morley, All Desires Known
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Related Elsewhere
Last year, a Christian History Corner discussed Advent from a “free-ranging revivalist” point of view.
Dick Staub interviewed Calvin Miller who discussed Advent from a Southern Baptist point of view.
Past Reflections columns include:
Wisdom for Ministry (Nov. 10, 2003)
Discerning God’s Will (Oct. 6, 2003)
Work and Vocation (Sept. 17, 2003)
Bumper Sticker Theology (July 30, 2003)
Songs from the Soul (July 8, 2003)
Walk Humbly (May 28, 2003)
Mercy (May 8, 2004)
Cross and Resurrection (April 16, 2003)
Justice (March 18, 2003)
Sex, Love, and Marriage (Feb. 14, 2003)
Mountaintop Spirituality (January 23, 2003)
Word Made Flesh (December 20, 2002)
Desert Springs (November 25, 2002)
Matters of the Mind (October 16, 2002)
Bumper stickers (August 6, 2002)
Preaching (July 18, 2002)
Prayer (June 24, 2002)
Suffering and Grief (May 20, 2002)
Writers and Words (April 18, 2002)
Crucifixion (March 28, 2002)
God’s Mission (February 13, 2002)
On Enemies (January 8, 2002)
Life After Christmas (December 26, 2001)
Love & Marriage (November 13, 2001)
The Word of God (October 22, 2001)
Leadership (October 11, 2001)
Suffering (September 13, 2001)
Change (August 14, 2001)
Living Tradition (July 18, 2001)
Sacred Spaces (June 11, 2001)
