urging us onward your fathful we pray Almighty God the resolve to run forth to

meet your Christ...Collect

 

I remember when we lived on G Street with a wide sloping frunt yard, and how at twilight, somewhere between age 3 or 4, I would run up the yard to meet my dad when he came home from work!

"Daddy!" I would shreek!

But now every muscle and limb has slowed down,

while time itself just keeps speeding up.

What of Advent? Can we slow it down just a tad to reflect on just who it is we want to meet this Christmas?

Or will we slumber through the season numbed by the rush of it all?

Paul tells us today: "You know the time. It is the hour now for you to wake from sleep."

What time is it?

It is a time of lengthening shadows and

dminishing sun.

It is a time in the midst of winter darkness, to rekindle the spark of Hope that there always can be something to hope for.

"Therefore,, stay awake!" says Jesus in today's Gospel.

As  we spread the winter comforters on our beds,

how can Hope be the comforter of our souls?

On Glen Ifill's memorial, one of her confriars said,

"We would often have long conversations in the group and some of it covered weighty topics, but at the end Glen would remark:

"But remember, life is good!"

Maybe that is the spark we need, the flicker of Hope:

"Life is good."

In the midst of tears and conflict, we love and we are loved. and life is good.

 In the midst of falling down, we get up again and

Life is good.

In th midst of pain and death, new babies are born and :

Life is good!

In today's collect we pray: Give us the resolve to run forth to meet the Christ..."

Hope is the engine of resolve. Hope is the springboard that  trembles beneath our feet and gives us the bounce that sends us into deep water and out again, and so at the befgining of this Advent, we pray:

Enliven our Hope O God.

Renew our resolve--

In a season often of discontent,

help us to run forward wih resolve,

rather than shrinking back with regret.

 Help us to wake from sleep.

To awake from the sleep of lassitude,

the sleep of cynicism,

the sleep of "what's the use?"

Help us never to lose sight of hope.

There she is!

just ahead of us,

always urging us forward.

"Come on!"

she beckons,

toward Christmas, toward joy,

toward the light

and the warmth.

Be comforted she proclaims,

"Be comforted!

Amen