As the days grow shorter and light fades into winter, the season of Advent begins a new church year by inviting us to peer into the darkness of what cannot yet be seen, but already has been imagined by Isaiah and Jesus and Paul. During Advent our charge is to prepare ourselves to receive into our own lives the gift of God-fully-fleshed in a child, in new and unexpected ways...and boldly claim that we long to be like Jesus.

During one of our staff meetings several weeks ago, I invited everyone to consider how we, as a parish, could reach out to our surrounding Dupont neighborhood with an Advent invitation to make ready for God's arrival in our midst this Christmas. How could we learn about our neighbors' fears and hopes, what they wonder about, and hold close to their hearts?  What would it be like if we knew their prayers and allowed them to help us as a parish to make room for love to take deeper root in each of our souls?  Our response was the Advent banner you see hanging outside facing our gardens, with an invitation for those who pass by to tell us their prayer - their dreams and hopes -- through our web site or written and placed in a small box on the steps beneath it. These prayers will help our parish to shape the Advent Taize Eucharist worship services that will begin this Wednesday evening at 6:00 and continuing the next two Wednesdays that follow.  I hope these neighbor-prayers will help us on our journey as a Christian-community and individual Christ followers to prepare ourselves for the unexpected coming of God into our lives.

The Christian theologian Henri Nouwen once wrote that "by claiming what we already are, we best prepare ourselves for what we shall be."  By claiming the gifts we are given, we can give those gifts to those who need them most.  So "keep awake therefore," Jesus said, "for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. ... Be ready, for the Child of God is coming at an unexpected hour."  Be ready, because opportunity may knock only once; life is short and our chances to be a difference are far fewer than we may imagine.

We are not given to know where Christ will find us, not the day, nor the time, nor the circumstance.  Brushes with critical illness and actual death still hover close to us this morning.  Two members of our parish, Peter Bocock and Ron Brazier, both met God face to face on the brink of Advent this year.  Neither of them knew where their final moment would find them; it came, suddenly, and with little warning.  Yet in each of them we see stories of courageous faithfulness, for they knew who they were and whose they were and were thus ready for the next step in their adventure as children of God.  Our day to day lives with both Peter and Ron remind us that hovering around the edges of our first Sunday in Advent together is this challenge of our own mortality - and the finite nature not just of the lives of each of us but of nations, and churches, as well.  Advent is an invitation to view the vulnerability of our entire human condition from the perspective of God's reason for our creation, God's longing that we will bring in the time when peace will prevail over war and violence, when light will shine brighter than the darkest of nights, when each of us will come to see ourselves and one another as God knows us, as persons of infinite worth and precious in God's sight.