The story is familiar: this is the season where we await the birth of a baby that changed the world.
Growing up Roman Catholic and now Episcopalian, I enjoy the familiar rhythms of the liturgical year. Advent starts the new year with four Sundays before the Christmas season.
With Ol’ St. Nick and gift exchanges, everyone knows the story of the baby in the manger born under the stars surrounded by parents and a few barnyard animals. It’s a lovely story of a cooing baby who is born of humble beginnings but grows into the manhood destined for him. It’s hard not to love a newborn!
But if we follow the liturgical calendar, we know how the story ends. As we proceed through the church year, we see scenes of Christ growing up in the Jewish traditions of the time and then being recognized as a great teacher and preacher. It is when signs and miracles start occurring (like turning the water into wine at Cana), that people start sitting up straight and noticing: this is not just the son of the carpenter from Nazareth, there is more in this embodied figure that is beyond our understanding.
We do know how the story continues through the rest of the year with the denials, persecutions and the crucifixion. Hopefully we make it to Easter and to the resurrected Christ who gives us all hope.
But that isn’t the end of the story. All the Gospels stop shortly after the Resurrection. Just as Paul Harvey would say at the end of each episode of his radio program, “Now you know….the rest of the story”, and we as Christians know the rest of the story, too.
Our readings for the 1st Sunday of Advent include Jeremiah 33:14-16 where we are told that there will be a day where Jesus will “execute justice and righteousness in the land.” We have hope in this described future where heaven and earth will be reunited, not as a formless void that we read of in Genesis 1, but instead a blending of heaven and earth where everything and everyone lives in perfect harmony and where there will be “no more death, or mourning, or crying, or pain.” (Rev 21:4)
I believe that my job here is to peel back one corner of heaven to show everyone what that perfect world will look like as it breaks into our time right now here on earth. And that really is, the “rest of the story.”
Blessings, my friend,
Agatha