Nathanielclaiborne.com Website Review

Rutledge had an advent book come out back in the fall, I decided it would be a good read for mid-December. sermons throughout the years. The sermons are preceded by a collection of Advent related writings. But, the bulk of the book is the collected Those sermons are broken up into groups of 9 subsections. The first three are Pre-Advent, the fourth are those from the Feast of Saint Michael, and the fifth is for the last Sunday of the Church year: The Feast of Christ the King. The next four then are for the four Sundays > In the medieval period, the Scripture readings for Advent were well > established, and they were oriented only secondarily to the birth > (first coming) of Christ; the primary emphasis was his second coming > on the final day of the Lord. Because the church in modern times has > turned away from the proclamation of the second coming, an > intentional effort must be made to reinstate it. Related to the > second coming, which Jesus repeatedly says will come by God’s > decision at an hour we do not expect, is the Advent emphasis on the > agency of God, as contrasted with the “works” of human beings. > An exclusive emphasis on Advent as a season of preparation risks > putting human endeavor in the spotlight for all four weeks of the > season. All the Advent preparation in the world would not be enough > unless God were favorably disposed to us in the first place. This > will be a principal theme in many of the sermons collected here, She goes on in the introduction to further explain the darkness of Advent, as well as its apocalyptic flavor. She later concludes, That has been the tension I have been living in lately. We want to wait on God’s time and be attentive to the times and seasons. But, we don’t want to lapse into pas*ivity and reactivity. This book provided good meditations on living in that season of Advent, which is