Another busy season comes. Holiday parties, family gatherings, the downtown Anderson Tree Lighting ceremony, Christmas parades, scrolling past an unending amount of bathrobes on Amazon to find “the one” for your daughter, Holiday Markets, travels, Christmas movies, attempting to stay on top of your new Advent Devotional, and oh yes, we forgot the Christmas tree. This year we were late and it’s the one time my tardiness paid off… we obtained a balsam fir from the Tree Farm at Walmart for 60% off!

I’ve deceived myself, yet again, that after “this season” things would slow down. And I am not even talking about the Holidays. I am talking about the busyness of the Fall with our new building, changing offices, finding the next place to do recess at, and everything in between. Low and behold that season is almost past us and here we are again-- more glowing opportunities to hustle and bustle. It’s hard to figure out sometimes if the brakes on life are completely shot or if I have entirely forgotten to use them.

That’s why Advent is something myself and our school recognizes as a beautiful invitation to be patient, slow down, and wait well. And that’s the hard part, waiting well. “Being patient takes way too long,” said my insightful 6 year old daughter once.

Advent is a season of patient waiting. And instead of waiting for this season to end and move onto the next one, Advent can gently ingrain a new rhythm with an unchanging object to fix our eyes on at the end. We wait for Him. And the beautiful thing about Advent is we do this in two ways.

First, we remember those who waited for thousands of years for the Promised One. Peter talks about those people who waited saying “.. the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating…” They searched and inquired and we see the posture of Advent season-- waiting well. The writer of Hebrews speaks of them as well saying, “these all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar.” Advent is a time to remember those who have gone before us and inhabit their world and moreover wait with them for the birth of The Promised One.

We also wait in another way. We wait for the return of Christ, the Second Coming. We greet those promises from afar in the here and now, those unfulfilled promises about the complete restoration of all things. Things that the prophet Isaiah talked about-- when lions and lambs lay together and children play over the adder's hole, when the unshakeable Kingdom culminates at a Wedding Feast with innumerable chairs, one for each of those whose name is written in the Book of Life. We slow down, pray for patience, and by God’s grace wait well for that unchangeable object of our faith-- Jesus Christ highly exalted above all nations.

So bring on the Elf, The Grinch, and that classic-- A Christmas Story. Let’s watch Ralphie almost shoot his eye out one more time. Bless your family with gifts and great food and drink, enjoy a warm morning around the Christmas tree. But let’s also wait together. Let’s wait with those who have gone before us. Let’s wait with all those who fix their hope on a God who always keeps His Word.

I snapped a picture this morning right outside New Covenant School’s main entrance. The beautiful building that we waited for so long is here with decorations on the doors and we're filling the offices out and students walk up and down the halls and it’s lovely. But the waiting isn’t over, we enter another season. And as I looked beyond the school I saw the lovely sky that declares the glory of God. In this season we fix our eyes away from ourselves, buildings, and other good things that busy the season, and lift our eyes up to Him and wait. We wait for His Coming-- when His Glory was revealed and that Second Coming where it will be revealed.

Come join us on Friday, December 15th at 9am for our all school Christmas chapel where we will join together in worship for a Lessons and Carols Service.

Here is the bidding and call to worship from that service in writing… it’s one of those things that are just too good to not put in front of us over and over:

“Beloved in Christ, in this Christmastide, let it be our care and delight to hear again the message of the Angels, and in heart and mind to go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, and the Babe lying in the manger.

Let us read and mark in Holy Scripture the tale of the loving purposes of God from the first days of our disobedience unto the glorious Redemption brought us by this holy Child; and let us make this place glad with our carols of praise.

But first, let us pray for the needs of his whole world; for peace and goodwill over all the earth; for the mission and unity of the Church for which he died, and especially in this country and within this city.

And because this of all things would rejoice his heart, let us at this time remember in his name the poor and the helpless; the hungry and the oppressed; the sick and those who mourn; the lonely and the unloved; the aged and the little children; and all those who know not the Lord Jesus, or who love him not, or who by sin have grieved his heart of love.

Lastly, let us remember before God his pure and lowly Mother, and all those who rejoice with us, but upon another shore and in a greater light, that multitude which no one can number, whose hope was in the Word made flesh, and with whom, in this Lord Jesus, we for evermore are one….”

Dean of Academics Winter Update