Hope - Advent | Southeast Christian Church

Find Jesus, community, and purpose. southeastcc.org Advent is a time of waiting; we wait with anticipation as we prepare our hearts for the coming of the Messiah. This season invites us to reflect on the true meaning and importance of Jesus leaving the comfort of heaven to take on the form of man and coming to earth to embrace our chaos. Southeast Christian Church And the Advent, if you grew up in a liturgical church or in a higher church tradition, you're familiar with Advent. Some of the low church traditions that are non-liturgical didn't have Advent and that's fine. I didn't grow up celebrating Advent even though my dad was a preacher, I didn't start celebrating Advent about 10 years ago. And Advent has become very meaningful for me because Christmas has a tendency to be one big fat distraction. I'm not trying to kill Christmas. So for those of you that are like, "I wait all year for Christmas. I celebrate Christmas from July to July." Okay, that's fine. But the story of Christmas is the Advent. It's the arrival of the king. It's not silver bells and chestnuts roasting on an open fire. And I'm not anti-Christian. We will have a Christmas tree. It's not set up yet, but we'll have one. I'm holding out hope against having Christmas lights outside of my house. But my neighborhood has put a lot of pressure on me. I got to be honest with you. To the point where my wife is like, "You're a pastor. We got to put lights on our house. Just looks like we don't love Jesus at all." I'm not anti-lights on the outside of my house. I just don't want to do it. I don't want to. I got better things to do with my Saturday than take 10 minutes and throw up a ... You know those orange extension cord work lights that have the light with the metal thing on the end of it with one bulb? I'll put that. I'll hang it. Merry Christmas. That's how I will do it. Christmas is a tendency to be a distraction and so the Advent is an invitation to call back to what is this really all about? What