Faith Venture

(Following yesterday’s thoughts.)

Advent 2025 began on Sunday November 30 thanks to a ruling by Pope Gregory the Great in the 6^th Century. Fifteen centuries later, here we are.

People expect a month of Christmas carols. The official church music calendar for Advent does not include those. Traditional Advent music is more introspective, almost melancholy. 

Advent traditionally calls for a change of heart. We are to examine our lives over the past year. Perhaps asking God’s (and other’s?) forgiveness for our transgressions and slights ant thoughtlessness. We are to prepare our hearts for welcoming the coming of Jesus some 2,000 years ago.

But also welcoming Jesus now. Someone, I’ve forgotten who, wrote that the first generation of Jesus Followers sat a chair aside at their gatherings for Jesus. They felt his presence in their midst. Jesus among us, now.

I’ve never been able to wrap my mind around the Second Coming. Traditionally that is the third welcoming of Jesus—the anticipation of Jesus’s return to earth in order to establish his kingdom in the New Earth promised by certain apocryphal writers.

The question for us during Advent—are we preparing to experience the presence of Jesus?

This entry was posted on December 3, 2025 at 5:01 am and is filed under advent. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.