Message for the Third Week in Advent

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Our theme this Advent season is "Come Home" - We hope you will accept the invitation: Come home to the God who has made a home among us! (John 1:14) 

During the First Week of Advent we looked at the longing for home that lies deep within us and the joy that comes at being at home with God.  We pray this Advent that you will return to place of your most intimate encounters with God. We pray that you will remember the home from which you came with joy and thanksgiving. We pray that through our worship together you will get a glimpse of the home for which we all yearn - a home promised by God of hope, love, joy and peace.  And we pray that you will be renewed and strengthened as we continue our journey of faith together as we prepare for the coming of Christ.

During the Second Week of Advent we reflected on the experience of exile, both physical exile and the exile we experience due to the loss of loved ones, of jobs, of homes, or anything else that takes away our sense of security, of identity, or of belonging.  Isaiah speaks a word of hope, a word of encouragement, a word of healing—a longed for word of invitation!  God says, “Come home!  Come home to me and come home to the land of peace and plenty! There is now a way where there was no way.  A new way home.  A new way to God.  A new way to place.  A new way to roots.  A new way to identity.  A new way to purpose."

For this Third Week of Advent, we turned our attention to Mary and Elizabeth seeing the ways they formed community and connection together and blessed one another. And we heard Mary’s Magnificat celebrating the mighty deeds of God in lifting up the lowly and humbling the mighty. 

Mary’s song reminds us of the humble home to which God has called us. Mary reminds us that our home has different values than the world around us. The prideful, the powerful, and the rich are humbled. The poor, the oppressed, and the weak are lifted up.  The church is to be a place where everyone can find connection and community, where everyone – from the youngest to the oldest, from the weakest to the strongest, from the richest to the poorest – can find a home. In bringing down the mighty and lifting up the lowly, God has made a way for us to be at home with one another.

We have to confess that sometimes we are not comfortable around those who are not like us. We make assumptions about those who are far better off than us. We make assumptions about those who are far worse off than us. And our preconceptions keep us from genuine connection and community. Thanks be to God who does not leave us captive to our own prejudices, preconceptions and false pride. Thanks be to the God who does whatever it takes to make a home for us, even in spite of ourselves.  What in you does God need to humble so that you might be at home fully in God's grace?  What in you does God need to lift up, heal or make whole so that you too might find your way home? 


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