The season of Advent begins on Sunday. It is a beautiful season of waiting, anticipating, and awakening. We reflect on how the Israelites waited for the Messiah and how we also wait for His second coming.

To pull our minds and hearts to the gift of the coming of Jesus, I will be sharing an Advent devotional or meditation each week from Practicing the Way. This week, we begin with reflecting on the hope we have been given in Jesus.

You can download a PDF of all of these devotionals and share them with your family, print them for yourself or save them to read on your phone.

Pastor Tracy

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Read Luke 1:5-7

"The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God." Mark 1:1

"Both of them were righteous in the sight of God, observing all the Lord’s commands and decrees blamelessly. But they were childless because Elizabeth was not able to conceive." Luke 1:6-7

Before every dawn, there is deep night. Between each breath, a quiet and trusting suspension. Before the earth drinks the rain, it travels in silence from the clouds that send it. Every good arrival is preceded by a waiting, a suspension, a liminal moment.

So it is with hope. It must begin with awakening. With a felt awareness of what isn’t and what can’t be. We only need hope when the moment seems bleak, when it looks as though life is unchangeable, on a path toward greater pain, grief, or loss.

That loss may be in the dreams we once had for ourselves or someone we’ve lost. It may be in the physical or mental healing we’ve been seeking without respite or the deep loneliness we feel. It may even be our sense of the absence of God, our inability to love him like we long to, our lack of spiritual vitality.

It’s important to feel all that. To truly know that neither we, nor this world, can fix ourselves. Because without an admission of our little or large terminalities, we’ll have no room for the miracle of hope.

Luke begins the story of Advent right here, with a barren woman named Elizabeth. He tells us she’s a true believer, righteous, blameless even, but lacking in what was likely her very greatest longing — a child. Luke wants us to remember that healing starts in our pain, in our darkness. But also that to live in the spirit of Advent is to anticipate God in the midst of it.

Hopelessness beckons the Miracle. Touching our longings honestly, and allowing ourselves to feel them, is the true beginning of hope. It necessitates it. In the midst of our great need arises the first in-breaking light of incredible news. Christ is soon arriving.

Reflect

What is your most vulnerable grief or hope this Advent season? If you like, take a moment to open this longing up to God and sit with him in it. You could journal your feelings, draw a picture that illustrates them, or sit in deep silence with the Spirit, feeling them and directing them toward the loving gaze of God.

This week, carry something with you that signifies your grief or hope. Holding it before God, beckoning the miracle.