It is exactly one week before Christmas. In six days, the sanctuary will be much fuller than normal. Many who are usually absent from worship will be present. As you prepare to celebrate Christmas rightly, this Sunday provides an opportunity to reflect on what it means to be present – for us and for God. Link to Service video on Vimeo Link…

The season of Advent is a time of hopeful anticipation—not only for December 25th, but even more for the second coming of Christ. Christians live in constant hope for that day. But during the season of Advent, our longing becomes more explicit and acute. The annual celebration of the incarnation reminds us that, as surely as Christ first came hidden as a…

The Advent season as a whole is a time in which the Church not only prepares to celebrate the Feast of Our Lord’s Nativity but also looks forward in repentance and faith to our Savior’s glorious second coming. This second Sunday of Advent emphasizes the hope believers have based on the present fulfillment of God’s promises Link to Service video on Vimeo…

Advent prepares the baptized both to celebrate our Lord’s having already come and already redeemed His fallen creation and to look forward to His coming again in glory. The Collect of the Day is addressed to God the Son. To Christ we pray, “Come!” For what purpose? That “we may be rescued from the threatening perils of our sins and saved by…

The Last Sunday of the Church year is a day of awe and glory. When the wood is finally dry (Gospel, Lk 23:31), the distinction between the unrepentant thief reviling Christ (23:39) and the penitent thief seeking Christ’s mercy (23:42) shall be made known throughout the earth as the distinction between “the righteous and the wicked.” Link to Service video on Vimeo…