Advent Sabbath – Emmanuel
Hi friends. I’m excited to have a little something to blog about. I’m working on our Sabbath service plan for tomorrow night. We’re going to focus in on the “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” lyrics as an Advent reflection. Below I’ve written up something short to open the night. It’s a draft, but read through it.
I’d love to hear your responses to how you are preparing yourself for Christ’s coming this season and what emptying of yourself might mean this year. I’ve been deeply struck by the significance of Advent this year and the amazing hope there is in waiting for Emmanuel’s coming.
Sabbath 12.5.08 – “O Come, O Come Emmanuel”
Tonight, we sing “O Come, O come Emmanuel”, calling for Christ to come and ransom us from the captivity of sin and life empty of him. We call for a life filled with light, with hope, and with the promise of newness in Him. We call out to be broken from the bondage of sin and strife and to become bound up in unity with each other, bound together in common purpose and love of God.
The Advent season is a time of remembering Christ’s coming in the form of a baby, born of Mary. In the weeks leading up to Christmas, we focus on her pregnancy, her being filled with Christ and hope in some way, we would be filled with Christ as well. His coming (again) is beyond us, but we are preparing ourselves in this moment to be filled with anticipation of that which is to come.
Our lives, being so wrapped up and bound by the trappings of the Christmas season, leave us too cluttered to have any room left for Christ’s coming. We have no space, amidst the tinsel, the lights, the gifts, to find space for being impregnated ourselves. We have no room in us for Christ’s indwelling.
Tonight, as we sing for Emmanuel to come, we offer up our filled lives and ask that we be emptied and prepared for the coming of Christ. We ask that we be emptied of the clutter, so that the light of Christ’s hope might live in us, preparing us for his coming. In being emptied, we ask that Christ fill us.
We are waiting for God to come. We pray that God would be with us now, in this place, in our bodies, in our being.
So how did the Sabbath service go?
It went well. It’s interesting to work within such a strong tradition and try to find ways to look at it anew. I think it was a well-received night of reflection and response.
We keep on with these things, trying to figure out how to be creative and explore worship in new ways with this community. It’s one of my favorite things I get to do in my job. I’ll try to post some photos next quarter, to show what it’s like.