May You Find a Light

Pastor Justin Fung introduces our Anticipating Advent series, which will explore the prophecies about Jesus in the book of Isaiah. As Christians, we celebrate Christmas as Jesus’ first Advent, when the kingdom broke into reality; but we look forward to his second Advent, his return, when he promises that all things will be made new. In this sermon, Pastor Justin asks, “What are you waiting for, and what sustains you in the wait?” He unpacks the vision of hope in Isaiah 9 and urges us to actively anticipate Advent this Christmas season. [Isaiah 9:2, 6-7] “The grace and the impatience to wait” by Walter Brueggemann In our secret yearnings we wait for your coming, and in our grinding despair we doubt that you will. And in this privileged place we are surrounded by witnesses who yearn more than do we and by those who despair more deeply than do we. Look upon your church and its pastors in this season of hope which runs so quickly to fatigue and in this season of yearning which becomes so easily quarrelsome. Give us the grace and the impatience to wait for your coming to the bottom of our toes, to the edges of our fingertips. We do not want our several worlds to end. Come in your power and come in your weakness in any case and make all things new. Amen.