St. Patrick Presbyterian Church, Epc

Advent! The world literally means, coming. That is, the coming of God into the world. This Sunday marks the beginning of our celebration of Advent at St. Patrick; and, especially if you are new, I can’t wait for you to journey with us the next four weeks leading up to Christmas. It is a time of obvious joy and celebration. I mean, if you can’t celebrate the coming of God in our flesh, what can you celebrate? But it is also a time of reflection and examination because we ponder the second coming of Jesus as well.  When I was growing up, we took a more subdued view of this month-long enactment of God’s coming, at least at church! We celebrated Christmas with relish in our home, but at church the festivity was limited to a few Christmas carols, a sermon on the Incarnation, and a little decoration. Our reasoning was, we should celebrate the coming of Jesus all the time, and too much falderal and excess would be a distraction. One day of hoopla was enough.  The only problem with that is our imaginations will not a