Aloha, Lahaina Ohana!
As I prepare to celebrate our first week of Advent this Sunday, it seems as if Advent has arrived more quickly than usual. The years just seem to speed by more quickly, as I get older, and my days are packed with more things to do, but the days since August have gone by in a blur as we in Lahaina seem to be caught in an endless cycle of “hurry up and wait.”
I, therefore, welcome Advent, a time when we pause and invite Christ into our triumphs, failings, celebrations, and mourning. For many of us, this season will be different. We will cling a little more closely to the spirit of the season, and our celebrations will be different -- perhaps a little quieter and more soulful. At Lahaina UMC, we will be celebrating Christmas on Christmas Day rather than Christmas Eve, and it will be the first holiday we will be celebrating after losing our beautiful church building in the Lahaina Fire. I am approaching the season with melancholy, and perhaps you are too, but I am also looking forward to this time of reflection and hope.
This Advent, we may be more ready than we have been in a long time to invite Christ to sit with us as we prepare to celebrate a different kind of holiday season. As we invite Christ into our days and prepare our hearts for Christmas, we look forward with hope to the new thing God will create in our lives.
This Sunday’s scripture passage from the Gospel of Mark Chapter 13 reminds us that people in Jesus’s time expected the imminent arrival of the kingdom of God just as some people expect it today.
Jesus would not tell his followers when he would return because the Father had not given him that information to share. We know the Son emptied himself of his divinity to live among us as Jesus. However, Jesus knew that God would ultimately make all things right in this world through him. We are not alone. Our current situation is not all that there is. History is heading somewhere, and we seek Christ to guide us as we wait. O Come, O Come Emmanuel.
Aloha nui loa,
Pastor John
O come, thou Wisdom from on high, and order all things far and nigh; to us the path of knowledge show and cause us in her ways to go. Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.