Advent (2021) - Joy

1. The Church Calendar
December 19

2. ADVENT ~ Week 1

7. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. The first heaven
and the first earth had passed away, and there was no
longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem,
coming down out of heaven, from God, prepared like a bride
dressed up for her husband. I heard a loud voice from
the throne, and this is what it said: ‘Look! God has
come to dwell with humans! He will dwell with them,
and they will be his people, and God himself
will be with them and will be their God
Revelation 21:1-3

8. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
There will be no more death, or mourning or
weeping or pain , since the first things have
passed away.’ The one who sat on the throne said,
‘Look, I am making all things new.’ And he said,
‘Write, because these words are faithful and true.’
Revelation 21:4-5

9. …because at this point John glimpses
the further future,
the vision of the New Jerusalem itself,
when God himself ‘will wipe away every
tear from their eyes’.There is an
intimacy about that promise.Yes, God is
rightly angry with all those who deface
his beautiful creation and make
the lives of their fellow humans
miserable and wretched.

10. But the reason he is angry is because, at
his very heart, he is so full of mercy that
his most characteristic action
is to come down from the throne and, in
person, wipe away every tear from every
eye. Learning to think
of this God when we hear the word
‘God’, rather than instantly thinking of a
faceless heavenly bureaucrat
or a violent celestial bully…

11. …is one of the most important
ways in which we are to wake up
from the nightmare and embrace
the reality, and the tremendous joy, of
God’s true day.

12. I walk through cemeteries whenever
I can, heading for the oldest parts
because that is where one finds biblical
inscriptions on the gravestones. “In thy
presence
is fullness of joy,” “My soul waits
in hope,” and, marvelously,
“I am the resurrection and the life;
whosoever believes in me, though
he were dead, yet shall live”
(John 11:25 42).

13. These are some of the soul-
strengthening words I’ve seen
on tombstones in my cemetery
explorations. Even if we cannot
be buried in a churchyard because
of lack of space, we can continue
to cherish the idea of a community
of the living and the dead awaiting the
coming of the Redeemer of
the world.

14. Advent faces into death and looks
beyond it to the coming judgment
of God upon all that deceives, twists,
undermines, pollutes, contaminates, and
kills his beloved creation.
There can be no community
of the resurrection without the conquest
of death and the consummation of the
kingdom
of God. In those assurances lies
the hope of the world.

15. In Jesus, God gave us a human
heart we could love.While God
can be described as a moral force,
as consciousness, and as high vibrational
energy, the truth is,
we don’t fall in love with abstractions.
So God became a person “that we could
hear, see with our eyes, look at, and touch
with our hands” (1 John 1:1).
Richard Rohr