Advent – Mike Angell

Advent Wilderness

In Advent we go out to the wilderness, because there, at the edge, there in the hands of wild ones something new can be born.

Advent Disruption

This season of waiting, of hope, of expectation, it’s a time of practice. Our world doesn’t wait well. Advent asks us to practice waiting. Even amidst the tinny holiday music clinically designed to make us buy yet more junk, underneath the disastrous drumbeats of the news, listen. There is another melody playing. There is a counterpoint.

Change your Hearts and Lives

in our translation today, John tells his followers, those snakes, to “produce fruit that shows you have changed your hearts and lives.” That phrase, “change your hearts and lives” that is what our translation uses for the word we’re used to hearing as “repent.”

Advent isn’t about nostalgia

Nostalgia can be powerful. So this season, I want to invite you, to the degree you can, lay the nostalgia aside. Do it for the sake of your mental health, for the sake of those around you. Realize this Christmas isn’t going to be like any Christmas before.