What Are We Waiting For?

I asked Todd to write this for me because I knew he would do a better job explaining this for us. As you may already know Children’s Ministry is offering an Advent Resource Table, there are a limited amount of the following book available (you can also order them online).

***Guest post from Todd Best–Book review: God With Us; Rediscovering the Meaning of Christmas

Advent means ‘coming’, but it implies that there is a waiting for whatever is coming. The Advent season is an invitation to reflection and waiting. But reflection about what? And waiting for what? While it’s true that Advent and Christmas are about the birth of Jesus who would would come to save us from our sins, the Incarnation is much more grand than taking care of our individual moral failure. The God of all Creation stoops to this tiny planet, and, through Jesus, enters our human experience by taking on the very flesh that we live in. And by coming into our world, he not only ends up saving us from our sins, but inaugurates the redemption of the whole of Creation, beginning by restoring humanity. He came to save us from our sins, yes, but more than this he came to show us what it means to experience our full humanity – how to have life to the full by being fully in God. He is making all things new, and he has begun with us. In all this he gives us not only a standing with God, but a whole new way of understanding all things and a way of being in the world.

Advent is our annual opportunity to rehearse Creation’s waiting, longing for the coming savior not merely to save us, but more-so to restore flourishing through life embedded in God. Intentional reflection on the meaning of the Incarnation can be prompted through reading. Our family has found several advent books that have helped us over the years, but the best is God With Us: Rediscovering the Meaning of Christmas. This collection offers several things that help our family pause for regular reflection and prayer throughout the season. Ecumenical in its theological form, it centers on the historically orthodox meaning of Christmas while it exposes readers to a variety of perspectives. It also offers historical insight to various feast days, events, and traditions along the way (see especially the entry on Saint Nicholas). God With Us also incorporates art (visual and poetic) as opportunities to expand the readings through the imagination. Finally, this book  offers a greater appreciation for the global and historic church as it sheds light on how the church calendar works and how we, in spite of our denominational identity, are truly connected to the entire Christian church through all time and space. As a side note, we have found, with a little creativity, it’s easy to draw children into the readings.

If you are interested in adding God With Us to your Advent reading a limited number of copies are available for purchase across from the Children’s Ministry Welcome Station at the church building – nicely priced copies are available online as well. The introduction by Eugene Peterson is worth the price of the book alone. You can read that and sample more here:

http://site.paracletepress.com/samples/exc-God-With-Us-1-20.pdf