Meditations for the Season of Advent 2024
The Christian Church, in all of its many forms and denominations, traditionally begins its liturgical year with the season of Advent, marking the four Sundays before the celebration of the birth of Jesus on Christmas. Each of the twenty-four days leading up to December 25 can serve as an invitation for us to reflect on what it is we really long to experience in the remembrance of, and anticipation of, the birth of Christ in our lives. While popular culture offers its own take on the real meaning of Christmas, its good news rarely lasts beyond the emotional lift of the latest Hallmark episode, Christmas party, or the 20 minutes it takes to open presents, discard wrappers and ribbons, and move on to our next entertainment.
However jaded we may become about “the holidays” as now conceived in contemporary America, Christmas—rather the anticipation of Christmas—yet retains the power to speak more directly and deeply to the Christian heart than anything the secular world may offer. For Christmas, was, is, and will always be that once-a-year reassurance that, even in the darkest of moments and the most hopeless of our anticipations about what is to come in the future, God is with us. The scriptural promise of Emmanuel that surrounds the birth of the Christ Child speaks in and through the scriptures of Advent even as it bathes us in the beauty of sacred song and flickering candlelight. In the solemnity of this season of hope we may yet perceive the presence of that Word becoming flesh once again in our midst, awakened and illuminated in God’s light of Truth that shines in the darkness. And not even the deepest and most foreboding darkness that we can conceive can ever extinguish that light which emanates from the one who is alpha and omega of all creation.
Please feel welcome to read and reflect upon the stirrings of my heart set into writing weekly Advent Meditations on this website. You will find them by clicking the All Posts heading at the top of this page. I’ve arranged these in sets of seven daily reflections for each of the three full weeks of Advent, with the remaining four meditations, including one for Christmas day, included in week four. Should you wish to share your thoughts with me about any of these writings, feel free to do so using the Comment space at the bottom of each week’s writings, or via the Contact drop down at the top of the website, or by emailing me directly at: wsummerhill@gmail.com.
It is my hope and prayer that these Advent devotions will bring you much food for thought and spiritual comfort.