Advent

Every Sunday in the month of December – we will not have any Sunday School and our worship service will start at 10:30!

Advent is from a Latin word that means coming or appearing. In the church calendar it has been a season in December set apart to remember and celebrate the birth of Jesus as the Savior of the world.

The birth of Jesus was almost certainly not in the winter but probably in the spring of the year 4 B.C. And there is no command in the Bible to celebrate the birth of Jesus. For that reason some believers in earlier times did not observe Advent. But the incarnation – when God became a man in Bethlehem of Judea – is remarkable beyond all expression and worth celebrating.

Advent marks the moment when the Creator stepped into his creation, became flesh and dwelt among us. For those hours the light of the world was tucked into that dark, shabby, empty corner of the Roman Empire. His life, death and resurrection form the center point of history and human experience.

We who believe that Jesus is exactly who he claimed to be must not just follow the world in its holiday but offer him proper worship in our celebration. Our Advent services are designed to that end. The music, the readings, the testimonies and the messages are all to help our faith and turn our lives toward God.

“Behold Christ lying in the lap of his young mother . . . . Look at the child knowing nothing. Yet all that is belongs to him, that your conscience should not fear but take comfort in him.”
Sermon on the Nativity, Martin Luther. @ 1535