Category: Advent 2025

Advent arrives in a world trained to gratify itself instantly.

One click. One tap. One purchase. One scroll.
We gratify hunger with speed, boredom with noise, loneliness with endless images of other people’s lives. We are taught that fulfillment should be immediate, customized, and effortless.

But Advent interrupts this instinct.

Advent does not gratify.
Advent teaches us to wait.

To wait in the dark.
To sit with ache.
To let longing stretch us instead of stuffing it.

Scripture tells us plainly:

“Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” – Galatians 5:24

To gratify the flesh is to try to feed the ache of the soul with things that can’t satisfy: comfort, recognition, control, distraction, indulgence. But Advent invites us to a different hunger—a holy hunger that makes room for Christ.

In Advent, we learn that not every desire deserves gratification.
Some desires are meant to lead us to God.

Mary waited.
Israel waited.
The world waited.

They were not numbing their longing. They were stewarding it.

And in that waiting, something holy grew.

So Advent gently asks us:

Where have you been rushing to gratify yourself instead of letting God fill you?
Where have you silenced holy longing with quick fixes?
What if the ache is not your enemy, but your invitation?

Because Christmas is not about instant gratification.
It’s about divine incarnation—God entering our waiting, not eliminating it.

And when Christ finally comes, he doesn’t arrive as a product to consume…
he comes as a person to receive.

This Advent, may we fast from shallow gratification and learn again the beauty of deep, patient gratitude.

Come, Lord Jesus.

In Advent, we often think of waiting: waiting for light, for hope, for peace to break into our darkness. The word reveling can feel out of place in that quiet, expectant season. It sounds loud. Excessive. Unrestrained. Something meant for parties, not prayers.

But Advent invites us to reclaim this word.

To revel is not merely to indulge. At its root, it means to delight fully, to be swept up in joy, to abandon ourselves to wonder. It is to lose restraint not in chaos, but in awe.

This season, we are not only called to be still. We are called to be awakened.

We revel in candlelight that pushes back the night, in songs that remember ancient promises, in the startling truth that God did not remain distant but chose to be born into the ordinary. We revel in the brave love of a young mother, the obedience of a quiet carpenter, and the vulnerable cry of a child who would change the story of the world.

Advent is not the absence of celebration; it is the slow unfolding of it.

We revel when we dare to believe that darkness is not final. We revel when we allow ourselves to feel joy before it is complete. We revel when we let anticipation become a form of praise.

This year, may our reveling be holy: not loud for its own sake, but deep with meaning. Not hurried, but rooted in hope. Not careless, but courageous.

We wait — and we revel — because light is coming.

In a world wired for speed, Advent arrives like a whisper.

We live in a season of alerts, headlines, and endless noise—both external and internal. Our minds are crowded with tasks, worries, and expectations. Silence feels awkward. Stillness feels unproductive. Yet Advent calls us toward a different way: quietness.

The prophet Isaiah wrote, “In quietness and trust shall be your strength” (Isaiah 30:15). This is a strange promise. Strength, we assume, comes from action, control, and noise. But God locates strength in what we often avoid: stillness, waiting, listening.

The story of Christmas begins in obscurity and calm. A young woman pondering impossible news. A long, silent journey to Bethlehem. A child born not amid fanfare but in the hush of a stable night. Shepherds keeping watch in quiet fields before the sky itself breaks open with glory.

God chose silence before the song.

Advent invites us to practice that holy quietness—not as escape, but as attention. Quietness is not emptiness; it is space. Space for God’s voice to surface beneath our racing thoughts. Space for longing to tell the truth. Space for hope to take root.

To be quiet in Advent is not to do nothing. It is to wait on purpose. To turn down the volume of the world so we can hear the Word made flesh drawing near.

This season, may we resist the tyranny of noise.
May we rediscover the courage to be still.
And in the quietness, may we find Emmanuel—God with us.

In the Bible, “tribes” were not just family groupings. They were identity, belonging, and responsibility. The twelve tribes of Israel carried history, promise, and purpose. Each tribe is distinct, yet called together under one covenant.

During Advent, the word tribes invites us to look at the ways we gather today.

In a fractured world, we still form tribes—political tribes, social tribes, church tribes, online tribes. We build walls around “us” and “them” without even noticing. We gravitate toward voices that sound like our own and stories that feel familiar. Comfort becomes our border.

But Advent interrupts that instinct.

Advent announces a Child who would be born outside the safety of any tribe’s comfort. The Christ child was born not into power, but into vulnerability, not into tribal dominance, but into costly love. He did not come to strengthen the walls of one tribe; He came to tear down the hostility between them.

The prophets said the Messiah would gather the scattered.
Not just one tribe — but all the tribes of the earth.

Advent is a season of waiting — but it’s also a season of reimagining belonging.

What if our deepest allegiance was not to the tribe that feels safe, but to the kingdom that makes us brave?

What if we saw strangers not as outsiders, but as future kin?

What if the Church became less about protecting a tribe and more about welcoming the hurting, the ignored, the forgotten?

Jesus was born into a lineage of tribes — and yet he came to form a new family:
not by bloodline,
not by culture,
not by agreement…

…but by love.

This Advent, may we loosen our grip on the tribes that divide us and open our hearts to the Christ who unites us.

Because in his kingdom, the borders fall,
the tribes kneel,
and every tongue finds its true home in him.

In the quiet of Advent, we listen closely to words. We wait. We watch. We lean in. And among all the words that shape the Christmas story, one humble word rises again and again: said.

The angel said to her…
Mary said to the angel…
The shepherds said to one another…

“ Said” is not dramatic. It is not loud. It does not demand attention. Yet it holds everything together. It is the bridge between heaven’s message and earth’s response.

God did not shout from a distant throne. He sent a messenger who said words of grace. Not as thunder, but as speech—personal, intimate, relational. The Holy One chose to be heard, not merely obeyed. Before Christ was born, God was spoken.

And Mary—young, uncertain, unprepared—said:
“Let it be to me according to your word.”

Advent lives in that space between what God said and what we are brave enough to say back. It is the season of holy conversation: a listening heart, a trembling reply.

The shepherds, overcome with wonder, said to one another, “Let us go and see.” Their said became their step. Their words turned into worship.

How many moments in our own lives hinge on what is said?
A word of hope.
A confession of fear.
A prayer half-whispered in the dark.

This year, as we wait for the Light, perhaps Advent invites us to slow down our speech—to let our words be as faithful as God’s. To let our said be rooted in trust, not noise. Not every word must be loud to be holy.

God still speaks.
Scripture still says.
The Spirit still whispers.

And we are still invited to answer.

This Advent, may our said become:
Yes instead of no.
Faith instead of fear.
Wonder instead of worry.

Because in the beginning of Christmas, nothing happened until someone said something.