The Pastor's Pen

            Advent has always carried its own slow rhythm, much like the quiet gestation of the Christ-child within Mary. Luke testifies that she “pondered (symballousa) these things in her heart” (Luke 2:19), holding mystery in the hidden place long before it became visible. The Greek symballousa suggests Mary was gathering the fragments of divine activity, arranging them within her spirit like seeds entrusted to soil. And as I sit with our congregation in this season of reflective waiting, I realize that grace is doing something similar among us- breaking up ground, loosening the hardened places, and preparing us for a new inbreaking of God’s life.

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            Grace is never idle. It may be gentle, but never idle. Like the earliest thaw that silently softens winter soil, grace begins its work long before we notice its effects. It slips into the furrows of disappointment, the compacted earth of unmet longing, the crusted-over places where fear and fatigue have settled like frost. And without fanfare, it begins to loosen what we have tightened, to restore what we have neglected, and to awaken what we thought had died in the cold.

            This is why Advent is not a countdown but cultivation. The candles we light are not decorative markers of time but luminous reminders that God’s work often begins beneath the surface. The prophets sang of a shoot springing up from the stump of Jesse, a sign of life emerging where only barrenness seemed certain. So too does Christ come to us- in the unexpected, the overlooked, the seemingly impossible- until hope begins to green in us again.

            Our time of selah also invites us to participate in this divine tending. It calls us to slow our hurried souls and let the Word sink in. It beckons us to repentance, not as shame but as the turning of soil that allows grace to breathe. It summons us to watchfulness, to look for the subtle signs of Christ’s nearness in our relationships, our prayers, our daily obedience. In this pause, this holy suspension, we discover that waiting is not wasted time; it is the place where roots deepen.  And perhaps this is the quiet miracle of Advent: that the God who chose to arrive in hiddenness still chooses to work in the hidden places of our hearts. He breaks ground not to expose us, but to prepare us. He pauses our pace not to hinder us, but to align us with His coming. In the selah, we learn to listen in the stillness, we learn to receive; in the waiting, we learn to hope.

            As we journey toward the cradle of Bethlehem, may we welcome this ground-breaking grace. May we allow the Spirit to sift, soften, and seed our souls. And may the Christ who once entered a world unprepared find in us a people ready- ready to receive Him, ready to bear His light, and ready to let grace grow the glory of God in every corner of our lives.