Weekly Pastor Update

November 27, 2022

This Week we will be celebrating the First Sunday of Advent. In the Church liturgical calendar this is also new year’s day. And we will light the candle of HOPE.

Our text this week is John’s amazing retelling of the Genesis creation narrative and the coming into the world of the divine-life (Zoe) of God, in Jesus. I love John's poetic voice as he shares his profound insights into the nature of God’s presence in our world. As I read this opening poem of John’s I noticed something new. I don’t know how I missed it. I have read this text literally hundreds of times (It was on the wall of my office for 40 years and in my head longer). The line I am reflecting on goes like this,  “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”

I guess I wanted John to say “and the light overcame the darkness.” I wanted to believe, I guess, that God overcomes the world's darkness, your darkness, my darkness. But I am seeing John’s poem with new eyes and a new heart this week. There is darkness, places where I can’t seem to catch my breath, where I see no way out, where claustrophobia sets in. A darkness that is not going away but is here to stay. Oh my.

But as I stand on the edge of Advent, a new year, I notice that John promises me that I have a light within the darkness. A light - and so a life - that allows me to breathe deep even in the midst of deep darkness, and the darkness can not put it out. 
 

I guess I had a different idea of how God would work in my life. I had an easier plan but here I am… breathing deeply, digging deeper, watching the light, warming my hands with the light, even, and especially, in the dark. I guess I understand better why one definition of darkness is “like in a womb.” Wow! 

This Advent season we are going to lean into the idea of “INCARNATION”-- God with Us. And this first Sunday we will be looking at incarnation in light of the Hope of the Gospel (good news). 

I am so looking forward to our time of waiting, soaking-in, of the amazing, world changing reality of God with us as revealed in the Birth, Life, Death and resurrection of Jesus…

Blessings and Love, Karl