A whole year of unfolding and waiting and remembering and celebrating to be done.

Lots of connections going on in my head and heart this Advent as I let Philippians 2:5-11 be my unexpected Advent passage this year and allow the passages from my devotional to interact reminding me how very much alive and at work God’s word is. This morning I was reading John 1, Jesus is the Word and Isaiah 55:11, God’s word does not return empty. The word that is alive and at work in me, around me and beyond me and will not be wasted. Those words then took me to the start of Philippians,

“being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” 1:6

Christ stepped down into our lives from His life with the Father. His story does not begin with the manger. He was in the beginning and came and is coming again. The Christmas story is not all of the story. There is a whole year of unfolding and waiting and remembering and celebrating to be done, year upon year. God is at work. Life may not feel that way, may not sound it if listening to the news. So those of us who know that God is at work need to be more willing to share, to show, to invite others to see for themselves. A challenge to myself as much as to anyone else.

Praying for all of you who have been leading carol services, have nativity services, midnight mass and Christmas Day services to go. May God even now give you courage to lay down what does not need to be carried in this season. There is a year(s) of unfolding and waiting and remembering and celebrating to be entered into until Christ returns, when God’s word will return to Him full and we will see Him face to face.