This week's news 

Sometimes it is hard to keep the faith and to wait for God. Rulers fail to bring in peace. Nations fight. Peoples are displaced. Resources are taken by the powerful from those with little or no power. Courage comes from renewing our hope in the everlasting love of God - a love that created the universe and comes close to us in our longing for justice in the land. 

It has been a week of weather. Storms and floods have hit the country destroying businesses and homes. As the guard on the severely delayed train said this week: ‘One thing we can’t do is fight mother nature’. We think we control so many things and chaos – both in the time of Jesus and now – is frightening. Where are our securities? We might recall our responsibilities towards nature and the need for wise stewardship. Are there signs here to urge us to change our relationship with the world that has been entrusted to us?

The result of the changes in housing benefit will displace many families from their communities and support networks and shift the burden of provision to local councils who are ill equipped to respond. 

In Egypt the signs of democracy seem right now to have been prematurely celebrated as mistrust of the current regime breaks out in fresh protest.

Combat rages in Damascus  and in Congo the threat of civil war returns.

Reflection

In this week's Gospel reading, Jesus describes a time of terrifying upheaval and destruction. Yet we are told that the listeners found some consolation in these words. Cataclysmic events sometimes occur in our own lives: relationships end; we lose our jobs and perhaps our health or our homes. All our securities may crumble into dust and we find ourselves caught in a whirlwind of despair and fear. God calls us to place our trust in his word and to fall into his eternal arms that will sustain us and hold us until we find some solid ground again. When Luke was writing he was probably referring to the destruction of Jerusalem – an unthinkable loss. Our faith should not be in human institutions in other people or in the church. Our confidence should be in God’s promises to us and the loving faithfulness which upholds the universe and calls both worlds and individuals to life and being. As we enter into Advent we are called to look for the signs of God’s presence around us; to be God’s presence in the world and to wait in and live out of hope. New possibilities can and often do emerge from the wreckage of dreams. Living in the light of this, can we wait with expectancy for the revealing of the new? 

The following video created by Christine Sine provides a way into reflection on the themes of today’s readings. 

It is based on a well-known Taizé chant which you may like to use in personal prayer or in church as you gather for worship:

Wait for the Lord whose day is near.
Wait for the Lord Keep watch take heart.

Prayer

Advent calls us to look outwards to discern God’s presence in the world and to look inwards to nurture the signs of God’s presence in our lives. At the beginning of a new church year we are called back to God’s forgiving and sustaining love and urged to go deeper as we journey on in our faith – traveling in what is more like a spiral than a linear journey. We are called to begin again.

Take some find time to reflect on the signs of God’s continuing presence. You might like to use the images of spirals to reflect on this year’s signs of growth and change and your hopes for this new beginning in the church year.

Lord of love and life, 

teach us to wait, 

to listen for your voice, 

to look for the signs of your presence.

Teach us to be still, 

quiet and alert, 

free of distraction, 

single minded.

Teach us to act from the still places of our hearts, 

out of wisdom not panic, 

out of love instead of fear.

Teach us to be signs of your kingdom 

so that waiting turns to hope 

and hope gives birth to the promise of new life.

Amen.

Pray with the Lord’s Prayer – thy kingdom come!

Questions

• What helps us to keep faith in God when everything around us collapses?
• How can we encourage each other to keep watch and to take heart?
• Where do we need to wait for wisdom and where do we need to take action? If waiting is not a passive thing, what is God’s call to us this season?

Action

Keep watch: take time to reflect on the news this week and to use this as a source for prayer and action.

Take heart: find some time to be quiet this week to give thanks for the places and people who reflect God’s love and life.

Young People

The Children’s Society will be launching a blog through Advent which will explore the situations children and young people find themselves in throughout the world.

Talk about experiences of waiting when we should have acted and acting when we should have waited. How do we listen to God?

Diane Craven is a freelance writer and trainer and a Reader in the Church of England.

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