Last Friday was “Black Friday,” the busiest shopping day of the year. Tomorrow is “Cyber Monday,” to promote online shopping. People are busy planning Christmas parties, sending greeting cards, and decorating for “the holidays.” In the midst of all this busy-ness, it’s easy to lose track of “the reason for the season,” to forget that Christmas is a holy day, not just a holiday.
Today, the First Sunday in Advent, is the beginning of the Christian year. Advent is a time of preparation leading up to Christmas. Liturgical Christians celebrate three different Advents: the Advent of Jesus’ birth on earth more than two centuries ago, the Advent of Jesus’ coming into our hearts when we accepted Him as our Lord and Savior, and the Advent of His coming again in glory at the end of time. The Bible teaches us to be ever-ready as we don’t know when the Lord will return. Advent is a time to prepare … to get ready.
I invite you to join me in brief daily Advent devotions here on my blog and encourage you to spent more time with the Lord in prayer, devotion, and Bible study during this special time.
As my Advent gift to you, I have created Scripture/prayer cards. You can download the PDF file, print the Scriptures on one side of the heavy paper or card stock and the prayers on the other, cut the page into cards, and carry them with you in your purse or pocket.
May this holy season refresh your spirit and bring you closer to God.
ALMIGHTY God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal, through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, now and ever. Amen. (Collect for the First Sunday in Advent, 1928 Book of Common Prayer)
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