Tensions of Advent

Joy to the world

The Lord has come

Let earth receive her King

Let every heart prepare Him room…🎶

It’s easy to associate joy with the Christmas season. The uplifting music, sparkling decorations, and all the great food - it’s the holidays. But it’s the remembrance of Christ coming to earth that really makes for “tidings of great joy” That was the message of the angels to the shepherds, remembered this third Sunday of Advent, a devotion to the theme of joy. 

When we remember the Christmas story, when we navigate the rhythms of Advent, it’s impossible to do so without paying at least some attention to the strains of the season too.  In Charle’s Dickens’ Christmas Carol, Scrooge wrestled with his own tensions. To overcome, he was given three nocturnal specters to help him embrace and see beyond his own uncertainties, to the joys of Christmas. We have a spirit too, the Holy Ghost, to helps move beyond the real and perceived tensions of Advent. Will you let God open your eyes this Advent? Allow Him to loosen your grip on life and trust Him enough to let yourself be the gift of joy to someone this Christmas? Being the gift of joy to another is the surest sign of the presence of Emmanuel, God with us.  #MetroLifeChurch #MinMChurch

Teach us how to love each other
Lift us to the joy divine *

Joyful Joyful · The Brilliance, Advent B Sides *