Joy is something more profound and permanent than momentary happiness or temporary pleasure. It is bathed in the muck, mire, and tears of living a story – a shared story.
The truth is I don’t want to live in a state of unknowing. I’d rather settle in cozily with the unwrapped mysteries of Christmas morning than experience the Advent uncertainty that must have thrilled the first hearers of John, who knew the source of the prophecy, but had no earthly idea how it might be coming true.
What Jesus calls us to search for is the more difficult hunt: not the signs of the end, but the signs of redemption, the signals that the Kingdom of God is nearer than anyone imagined or expected.
Bishop Phoebe Roaf makes her annual visit to Calvary.
Our lives are to be lived out with the urgency inherent in Mark’s ancient words not that we might be saved for future reward but that we might live now in the fullness to which God in Christ has called us by doing our part to bring God’s realm on earth.