This Week : 2 December 2018 –  In The Meantime
This Week : 2 December 2018 – In The Meantime

This Week : 2 December 2018 – In The Meantime

Bible Reading: Luke 21:25-36

Dear Friends,

Today is the first Sunday in Advent, and the beginning of the new church year. We enter now into cycle C in the lectionary, and in cycle C the gospel lessons focus on Luke. We start though, not at chapter 1 in Luke, but at chapter 21 near the end of the book. We start with Luke’s vision of the coming of Jesus again. The first Sunday in Advent always places an emphasis on the cosmic signs portending the coming redemption of Christ at the end of time.

Advent, or adventus, means coming, and the text on the first Sunday ushers us into coming of Christ not long ago in a stable at Bethlehem but rather the future coming of Jesus, in-breaking into our world. Christians sometimes forget that we do have a hope of Christ coming again, though it is a significant motif throughout the New Testament. Each of the synoptic gospels Mark, Matthew, and Luke have a discourse on Christ coming again, as well as the epistles of Paul 1 Cor, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, and of course, Revelation. The word for Revelation in Greek is “apocalypse.” This kind of biblical literature in our text for today, with signs, wonders, and visions of the world to come, is considered “apocalyptic.” Apocalyptic literature offers hope and assurance to people in the midst of suffering; it is to be read and heard with the imagination, with eyes and ears open to new ways of envisioning life.

We are an Advent people, called to live expectantly and so to live expressing our hope for God’s future by living as if it is already here, not dictated to by our present sufferings but informed by the vision of what God has in store for all things. May you be strengthened by his love this day and week ahead and hear his voice which draws us into a future already here but yet to come.

Solomzi

 

One comment

  1. Carika Breytenbach

    Good day

    Our daughter Inge Breytenbach will be studying at the Waterfront Theatre School at the Waterfront in 2019. We are looking for an elder women with a garden flat that we can rent for Inge, or anyone that can assist us with accommodation for Inge in 2019. We will be grateful if you can assist us with that as we are from Pretoria and does not know the area at all. Please contact me via email or on my phone 082 3723999

    Kind Regards

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