First Sunday of Advent – December 1, 2024

Pastor Todd preaching from Isaiah 43 and Luke 1:26–38 This Sunday, we enter the sacred time of Advent—the journey of anticipating and beholding God’s love born into the world again and again. Advent is a season of endings and beginnings. As the calendar year comes to a close, a new church year rushes in. Christ’s birth ushers us into new ways of living and loving—and yet, we feel the weight of many things coming to an end. The world as we know it spins madly on. This year, Advent starts as another election season here in the US has come to a close. In many ways, pregnant Mary was surrounded by endings—large and small, personal and political. But Mary proclaimed hope in a God who was and is making all things new. Christ’s birth offered a beautiful new beginning for shepherds and Magi alike—all the while, King Herod tried to bring Christ’s story to an end. When we ourselves navigate seasons filled with endings and beginnings, we need reminders. We need words that can feel like steady ground, like a path for our feet to find as we step forward into the unknown. Our worshipping life this season will focus on the reminders we will need in order to move faithfully through this threshold. And as we journey through this season, we search for words for belovedness and hope. May you find words for beginning again. For no matter what we are facing, no matter what this new day brings, love is our beginning. Mary is described as “blessed among women” (Luke 1:28). She is neither wealthy nor powerful, and yet she is chosen to bear God’s child. Her story begins with blessedness, and so does ours, for the prophet Isaiah declares that we are claimed by a God who calls our name. We are a blessing because we belong to God. When blessedness is our beginning, we begin to see the world—and others—through the eyes of a God who says: “You are precious in my sight.”