Advent One

I had three different reading lists today.  We have moved to the Advent 2 Readings on our "regular" list here. My Advent cards for the family have us reading John 1: 1 - 5. The readings provided for our kids' Advent with our friends were... unusual. You can go ahead and look up Romans 13: 11 - 14 on your own and decide if you, like me, would have edited a bit. I left it with the part about waiting for the light.

The regular readings were from the parts of the Bible that make me have to squint and wiggle to keep myself in the Christian box. I'm not sure I'm actually in that box in any real way anymore - I've been calling myself Jesusy for years now just because the word "Christian" means too many things I don't mean when I want to describe my faith. But today even Jesus is a bit of let-down in Luke, telling his disciples that the end is nigh - they just have to survive a few wars and earthquakes and then the end will come. As you may know, it hasn't quite worked out that way. I know we've kind of decided to agree that probably the writer misunderstood, or maybe we all misunderstood, but still, it's kind of hard to work with, you know?

Happily, I'm happy to just let it go.

So tonight I rest in those first verses of John.  They are some of my favourites, some of the reasons that despite the odd inconsistent, really-we're-supposed-to-believe-this bit, I feel so at home in the Jesus story: word, Word, light, life, darkness, not understanding.

Of course I love Jesus - Jesus was The Word. I LOVE WORDS! And that Word? that Word was with God and the Word was God. Through him (through... love this) all things were made; without him, nothing was made that has been made - Jesus was in on all of it. All of us were made with him and through him. Not a one of us is not known by him. And in him was life, and that life was the light. Jesus' life brings light, a light that shines in the darkness.  Anything we can see, anywhere we experience life, darkness is losing. And the darkness can't understand it. It makes no sense. So we hang out as close to the light as we can, doing our very best to live Life.

All this Life and Light and Word - this is what we spend the next weeks and days anticipating. Adventing.

Come Lord Jesus. Come Word. Come Light. Come Life.

John 1:1-5

New International Version (NIV)

The Word Became Flesh

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was with God in the beginning. ³ Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. ⁴ In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. ⁵ The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not understood it.