We are well into the season of Advent now.
We have celebrated hope, peace and joy, and are looking forward to this Sunday’s theme of love. It is kind of weird in a way, to be waiting for hope, peace, joy and love. Are those not four emotions that we should be striving for at all times? Aspects of our lives that we would want to highlight, would want to live out as much as possible?
Advent, the season of waiting, sometimes is difficult for me. Waiting to me sounds like a passive word, but we can’t be passive in our search for hope, peace, joy and love. Our brothers and sisters in B.C. and Nova Scotia are not feeling hope or love because others are doing nothing. Any hope they are feeling is because of the work of people stepping in to offer support, caring and love.
One way I like to think about the season of Advent is not just celebrating the different themes, not just waiting for Christmas and celebrating Jesus being born, but I like to think about how Jesus being born can bring those aspects alive in me. I think of Jesus as someone who turned things upside down, turned over the tables, made people think differently, made people expect the unexpected. That was how he taught, that was how he lived, challenging those around him to be better.
Maybe that is where we can look for hope, peace, joy and love in this season. Yes we want to lift those aspects up all the time, but perhaps during Advent we can look for unexpected ways to bring about hope, peace, joy and love.
Perhaps while waiting for Jesus during this season we can act more like him, in challenging those around us to express and experience hope, peace, joy and love in completely different ways.
Spontaneous acts of kindness can happen in many different ways, but what is usually a theme among them is that one spontaneous act, creates another. Have you ever been in line (it usually happens at Tim Hortons) and you order your coffee and pull out your wallet to find that the person in front of you has actually already paid for your coffee? It has happened a couple of times to me, usually in the drive thru.
If that has ever happened to you what did you do? I would guess you then passed it on paying for the person behind you.
I’ve always wondered how far that one spontaneous act of kindness goes? Did 10 people pay for each other’s orders? Twenty? Fifty? We don’t know how far one act of hope, peace, joy or love can spread. But we do know it spreads.
It doesn’t have to be big, or grand. It doesn’t have to be showy or expensive. It doesn’t have to fancy or elaborate. We can all show kindness in so many different ways, but it is something we have to work at.
These things, even spontaneous acts, don’t just happen without someone taking the incitive to do them. We have to work and be active to bring hope, and peace into the world, by doing that we can share joy and show love.
Submitted by Mark Laird,
DM Drayton United Church