Our Father...Advent to Advent

Extras

Good Christmas Eve Morning, Friends.

I was reading my new book and had to share some excerpts with you (below). I included 'Hark! The Herald Angels Sing' at the end of my post because it is my favorite Christmas song (well, that and 'Once in Royal David's City,' but I decided to only include one of them.)

This morning at 9 AM CST, I will be tuning in to The Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, live from King's College Chapel in Cambridge, England (where it will be 3 PM Christmas Eve), as I do each year. I hope you will do the same. You won't be disappointed, I promise. Check out the notice from American Public Radio.

Now on to the book excerpt I was telling you about:

"...calling God 'Father' is the great act of faith, of holy boldness, of risk. Saying 'our father' isn't just the boldness, the sheer cheek of walking into the presence of the living and almighty God and saying 'Hi, Dad.' It is the boldness, the sheer total risk, of saying quietly, 'Please may I, too, be considered an apprentice son.' It means signing on for the Kingdom of God... (Emphasis added)

"We live between Advent and Advent; between the first great Advent, the coming of the Son into the world, and the second Advent, when he shall come again in power and glory to judge the living and the dead. That's why Advent is sometimes quite confusing, preparing for the birth of Jesus and at the same time preparing for the time when God makes all things new, when the whole cosmos has its exodus from slavery...

"When we call God 'Father,' we are called to step out, as apprentice children, into a world of pain and darkness. We will find that darkness all around us; it will terrify us, precisely because it will remind us of the darkness inside our own selves. The temptation then is to switch off the news, to shut out the pain of the world, to create a painless world for ourselves. A good deal of our contemporary culture is designed to do exactly that. No wonder people find it hard to pray. But if, as the people of the living creator God, we respond to the call to be his sons and daughters; if we take the risk of calling him Father; then we are called to be the people through whom the pain of the world is held in the healing light of the love of God...

"It is the rhythm of standing in the presence of the pain of the world, and kneeling in the presence of the creator of the world; of bringing those two things together in the name of Jesus and by the victory of the cross; of living in the tension of the double Advent, and of calling God 'Father.'"

- excerpted from The Lord and His Prayer by N.T. Wright (purchased on Amazon.)

"He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David; and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end." Luke 1:32-33