The First Baptist Church of Redlands
TA PE S T RY
Woven Together In Love: Colossians 2:2
DECEMBER 2017
The Full Power of Advent A MESSAGE FROM PASTOR SHAWN
Coinciding with Advent each year is the anniversary of the mass shooting that took place in San Bernardino on December 2, 2015. That horrible tragedy shook us all, but touched many in our congregation very personally. As a result, every mass shooting that has happened since then dredges up some of the old feelings and memories of that horrible day. Yet, it also seems that with each mass shooting we become numb. It is a coping mechanism that helps us to deal with the horror of the fact that mass shootings are happening with more frequency than we can process with our mind and emotions. And so we enter Advent this year. Advent is a season of lament. It is a time in which we bring forth and lay before God those things in our hearts and minds that bring us sorrow and weigh us down. Those things that cause us to ask “why?” for which we feel there is no answer. It is in Advent that we wait on God, asking, “How long?” We remember others who have waited before us: the people of Israel, waiting in all sorts of circumstances, including exile and being conquered as a nation, for the promised Messiah. We wait, with generations that have come before, for the coming of the New Heaven and New Earth promised by the resurrection of Jesus. In the meantime, in the midst of lament, we receive the message of hope, peace, joy and love—glimpses of what is promised, tastes of the Good News of Jesus Christ.
Spiritually, and even therapeutically, Advent is the time that we allow ourselves to feel, to ponder, to ask the questions, to wait. We do all of this under the protection and guidance of the Holy Spirit. We read scriptures and stories of waiting and lament, alongside the newspaper and other information sources of what is going on around us. In the midst of this we discover the hope, peace, joy and love that come from God no matter the circumstances of life. Unfortunately, Advent often gets ignored or pushed into the background with the busyness of the holiday season. We allow Christmas to come seeping in to this season of spiritual preparation. And the trappings of the cultural traditions and even the commercialization of Christmas steal the opportunities of the healing that can happen in Advent. Some who are liturgical purists will observe Advent not allowing anything of Christmas to come before Christmas Eve (night), no tree, no decorations, no Christmas carols, nothing.
ISSUE No. 12 After the season of lament, waiting and reflection, Christmas, then, comes crashing in, just as God broke into our world through the birth of Jesus. Then Christmas is celebrated for twelve days, followed by Epiphany which celebrates the “God-sightings” that come because of Jesus living with us on earth. It is hard to be a purist. However, I encourage and even challenge us to take advantage of this season of waiting, anticipating and lament. Though it is difficult, may we take the time to feel and reflect on that part of us and of life that is difficult. Allow those questions of “why?” and “how long?” to rise to the surface and then put them in God’s hands. Look for those signs and places and messages of hope, peace, joy and love that exist despite the circumstances of life. And in the experience of Advent may the meaning of Christmas, the coming of Christ become real to us and evident in the lives that we live, individually and as a church family in this community and world. Merry Christmas... But all in its proper time. - Pastor Shawn