O’ Gracious God, the Giver of every Perfect Gift.

We, your people, are readying our hearts and homes with the glow of stringed lights and the freshness of evergreen bows. 

We are making lists and filling pantries for feasts and shared celebrations.  

We are marking our December calendar with invitations and gatherings.  

We are doing good things.

Even now—cause us to stop.  To be still.

Breathing in and out the same breath of life you imparted to Adam.  The same breath your Son gasped and cried forth in on the night he was born.  Help us to sit in the stillness of this thought.  God became man.

The lights, the filled lists, the coming together—

all these help us to remember that in each of these beautiful things, we are remembering that you came in the fullness of time.  You came to fill everything we do with hope and meaning.

These aren’t silly, busy tasks.

Help us to see that as we prepare and plan, we have an opportunity to worship.  

Right here in the tinsel and frosted cookies.

As we are sweeping out the heavy and long year, we are celebrating Your provision and gracious, abiding compassion to us. We are recalling that Jesus was born into a dark and heavy world, too.  To bring light and lightness to everything that life and all the long years had piled up.  We dust away the shelves and the door frames as we hang garland and set our candles.  Jesus, you pushed back the dark that clung so close. 

The first Advent breaks the darkness, like the sun over the mountain ridge.  Bursting in pinks and golds—light irresistible.  It melts the coldest part of the day away.  We see the world rightly in that glow.  

Now, we are living in the hope that first coming gave.  The secured hope that you will continue to break the darkness—over and over again, and that somehow, in your merciful plan, you have invited us to bear that same brilliance to others stumbling—those who are still waiting for sunrise.

Yes, we celebrate!  We sing carols, we warm our homes with ovens filled with treats and friendlily laughter!  In these things we are lighting our lamps and declaring—

Jesus came to us, Jesus is with us, Jesus will come again.

So, we are living between two Advents.  

In this space of remembering and waiting—

We put up our trees with anticipation, the fragrance reminding us of all the promises yet to come.

We set out the candles, knowing that you have prepared for us a city where You, Yourself, will be our Light forever.

We wrap gifts to loved ones envisioning their faces of excitement as they pick them up and wonder what is within—even here, let us turn our hearts to you.  

We are expecting You, Jesus.  Our greatest gift, we are excited and awaiting your return.  One that will have you coming in full glory as you rightly deserve, to make all things new.  Better than anything we can wrap in a box.

In this between we sing, “Thank You!”, in every carol.

We whisper, “Come Quickly!”, in every Advent prayer.

We look to you to satisfy us as no mere tradition can in this place of celebration and anticipation.  Help us to abide as we remember and wait.

Unto you, Jesus, born poor and weak and laid in the humblest place.  

Jesus, to return full of power and all authority to redeem the people and earth He created.

Your Name Forever, Amen.