Advent 2019 December 1

A series of short daily readings to guide us through this special season towards the Joy   that is to come. 

An Advent poem:

He will come like last leaf’s fall.                                                                                                                                      One night when the November wind has
 flayed the trees to bone, and earth wakes
 choking on the mould, 
the soft shroud’s folding.

He will come like the frost.                                                                                                                                                   One morning when shrinking earth
 opens on mist,                                                                                                   To find itself arrested in the net of alien, 
sword-set beauty.

He will come like dark.                                                                                                                                                                One evening 
when the bursting red December 
sun sets up the sheet and 
penny-masks its eye to yield
the star –snowed fields of sky.

He will come, will come like 
crying in the night,                                                                                                               Like blood, like breaking as 
the earth writhes to toss him free.                                                                                         He will come like Child.

--Archbishop Dr. Rowan Williams (Oxford, 1994)

Advent Calendar

Sunday December 1st 

Keep Watch. Take heart. 

As we begin our journey through Advent Lord, we ask You to help us bring the whole of ourselves into Your presence, into the amazing mystery of Your experience among us.  Meet us now in this place and in this time as we follow the path of Your love once again. 

Psalm 13

How long, Lord? Will you forget me for ever?

How long will you hide your face from me?

How long must I wrestle with my thoughts

and day after day have sorrow in my heart?

How long will my enemy triumph over me?

Look on me and answer, Lord my God.

Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death,

and my enemy will say, ‘I have overcome him,’

and my foes will rejoice when I fall.

But I trust in your unfailing love;

my heart rejoices in your salvation.

I will sing the Lord’s praise,

for he has been good to me.

Reverend Margaret Watson (retired)

Former Salvation Army Officer, UK