Sunday, December 1 through Saturday, December 7
The advent wreath is a folk tradition, and no one is exactly sure of its origin. Depending on the variant, the candles we light each Sunday have different meanings, either hope/peace/joy/love or prophets/Bethlehem/angels/shepherds. I like to play with the order of the themes a little so that I can combine the two sets. This first week, we are working with the theme of Hope and Prophets, hearing several times from Isaiah.
At advent time, one of the scriptural themes is salvation history – the ways God has saved, Christ is saving, and the Spirit will save their people – and to draw a line from that history, through the present, and into the promised future. We find hope in tracing that line.
Prophets are often out of step with culture; when things are going well, prophets preach doom and repentance. When things are darkest, you can count on the prophet to proclaim light. And for prophets, this vision is so vivid that they sometimes express it as though it is inevitable, as though it has already come to pass. Similarly, with our topics this week, our hopes for the saving power of God to be made manifest, we claim them as already present realities. Peace flourishes, the waters are dried up, the snare is broken, the barren have joy, the poor are delivered, the injuries are bound up, and the way is made straight.
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