As hope comes into the world in metaphor, in symbol and sentiment, especially around this time of year, we're pushing ourselves to be a community that brings hope into the world tangibly, practically, physically and holistically. More than peace of mind, our hope is wrapped up in the good news of peace on earth!
We talked this week about the genealogy in Matthew's gospel, and the way that it points us to the hope of the big story- God's movement from Exile to Immanuel- from darkness, brokenness, absence, and chaos- to presence, light, wholeness, and beauty- no less than God with us, incarnate... God as us.
So we hope in the big story, but we also recognise that each of the people in the big story is the architect of their own portion of the story. Each has, if we can picture it, some invisible parentheses beside their name in the genealogy, in which their story is written. Each of them, and each of us, makes choices about how we'll participate in bringing God and everything God stands for and cares about into the world, or how we'll reject this and perpetuate the different forms of exile in which so many of us already live.
This season is about the hope of the big story, and the hope each of us has to sew our stories- by choices, awareness, and action- into the fabric of the big story. God is coming into the world! May we grow in awareness and anticipation, may we join in this Advent!
Below, find some practical ways we can manifest Immanuel rather than Exile this season: More than how spiritual, or Christmassy, or "close to God" we feel- how do we shop? Treat others? Deal with family dysfunction? Deal with feelings of loneliness? Deal with living with less?
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