Advent-ure

Pastor Bob

Bob Luhn commented recently that "Advent" is the first part of "adventure," which so beautifully describes this season.  A bit skeptical, I looked it up in an online dictionary to see if there really is a linguistic connection, or if it's more of a coincidence.  I like what I found there.

As it turns out, both words do originate from forms of the Latin advenire and its French relatives.  Adventure speaks of "what must happen," and its meaning has shifted some over the years to suggest risk/danger and "a novel or exciting incident."  This whole progression makes sense to me.  The future is always unknown, which carries with it a sense of risk.  We respond to risk quite naturally with a measure of excitement.

And Advent?  Advent is about the coming of Jesus.  God had been saying for years that the Messiah would come.  It was risky in many ways, but it was how He would save us from ourselves.  During this season of Advent, we wait with intention and faith, imaginatively pondering what it was like for God's people to wait those many years without knowing when the Messiah would come, or really even how he would appear.

There is something else here, too.  Though Christ did come two thousand years ago, Advent reminds us that we still wait for his return.  As God's people waited and did not know the details of Jesus' coming ahead of time, so too we wait with longing and hopeful expectancy for his Second Coming.

Advent is a time of adventure, waiting for what must happen, recognizing risk involved, and sensing the excitement of what will be.  Like any good adventure, I want to be sure I am fully alert and ready as the future comes.

-- Debi