Across the Pastor's Desk - December 16, 2005

Donald F. Rose

Pastor of Mansfield and United Lutheran Churches

Across the Pastor’s desk for December 16, 2005

 

 

The season of Advent is a season of hope and expectation. This is a season for active patience. We are patiently waiting for the Savior, both the celebration of his birth and the anticipation of his return. But it is to be a time of active patience. This season originally mirrored the season of Lent prior to Easter. It was a time of prayer, fasting, and the giving of alms in anticipation of the Christmas celebration. It was and still can be a season in which the children of God dedicate themselves to being the means by which the love and grace of God so freely shared might be felt throughout the whole of God’s creation. Rather than a time for considering the gifts that one might receive, it becomes the opportunity to consider the gifts that one might share with others that they too may know the joy of Christmas.

Gifts given to those in need become the means by which the love and care and concern of God for the whole of creation begin to be realized. It is true that the task often seems to be particularly overwhelming. It seems as if our feeble efforts mean little or nothing and in frustration and despair we abdicate our role as agents of the Creator. We begin to focus solely upon ourselves and lose sight of the reality that the God whom we worship is not just the God of our congregation, or neighborhood, or community, but is in fact the God of the whole universe.

In the discipline of Advent we seek to hear the voice of God guiding and directing us to those who are most in need in the midst of a world of plenty. Those persons may be found throughout the world to be sure but also they can be found in the very midst of us as well. They are the people of the margins, the oppressed, the poor, those who are hungry. They are the people that we do not see as we go about our every day routines, because it has become second nature for us to ignore them and to avoid them.

Advent is a time for us to remember that we are not redeemed by the god of over-consumption and excess. It is a time to remember the gifts with which we have been blessed and to discern the ways in which those gifts might be shared and distributed with all of God’s children. This season of Advent is quickly drawing to a close. But there is still time for us to savor the waiting for the One who is to come, as well as to reach out in our abundance to those who are without. In doing so we will be open to the season with all of its hope and promise for us and for all of God’s people.