Advent is the season leading up to Christmas when we recall the longing and anticipation for a savior. We turn to Scripture and connect with the cry of the human heart for light to break into the darkness that fell after Adam and Eve sinned against God. And as the fullness of time had come, God sent His Son, a baby born from a woman. Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity, stepped out of heaven and became a vulnerable, breakable baby. He would push back the darkness and call us out of desolation into an unfathomable light. He would buy back the human heart from its varying slaveries, so God alone could name us as sons and daughters, adopted and chosen in Christ.

Here we stand again in a season of Advent, a new generation of people, longing for a Savior we know will come. It’s a longing we sense even while knowing Jesus’ work was completed through his birth, death, and resurrection. We stand in a new tension between the Rebel feast and the Wedding feast. Jesus’ work is done, but the Kingdom of God has not yet fully come. 

We want to invite anyone and everyone to journey with us through these four weeks of Advent. Step inside the quiet, the longing, the expectation, and finally, the great fulfillment. It’s a little like holding your breath for a long time, waiting to exhale. If you are one human as broken as the next, this is such a fresh and marvelous way to approach Christmas. The wide-eyed, jaw-dropping, heart-pumping miracle of God, coming to us in our tattered state, giving our souls worth, is what makes Christmas a new and unique celebration like no other!  

"Mary was the first to accept that redemption should take place in the way we do not want it to take place; ruining all our plans, all our expectations, causing them to fail." —David Benner, from Desiring God's Will

Our prayer is that everyone is able to find the depth of meaning in each beautiful or painful moment in this Christmas season. Be present in the journey, friends!