Thresholds: Crossing into God’s New World

Threshold of Resistance

This season is chaos! There’s so much to do, so many places to go. And so I ask, have you taken time to check in with what your soul is needing? Have you taken time to consider what God is asking of you? 

Perhaps our passage in Isaiah this week can help. In it we are called to seek the Lord and abandon the things that take away what is nourishing and life giving. Many of us hunger for community, for purpose, for justice, and for peace. We end up seeking these things through passionate striving and an addiction to busy-ness. But Isaiah proclaims that God can nourish our hunger in a way that doesn’t take away from our quality of life, and instead adds to it in ways we never could on our own.  

And so we must resist, beloveds. We must resist the temptation to do everything, to be everything. We must resist the urge to look away from the depth of matters in this life. From our human condition, from our brokenness and our need for each other. We resist the pressures of hatred and judgment in this world and instead we turn towards the Lord who provides us with a river that never runs dry. 

As we prepare our hearts and minds for the coming of Christ, we turn away from what condemns life and turn towards one another, towards the needs of our neighbors, towards the wellspring of God’s life that has no end, and towards the waters of baptism that carry us and connect us to all creation.  

The good news is we can always turn. We can always resist, we can always start anew. Accepting the grace of God and experiencing a peace beyond understanding. Surrendering through prayer and seeking Christ in one another.  

This Advent, we’ll consider what it means to be on this threshold beyond what was and what will be, the threshold between this world and God's promise. We will resist the temptation to fall into cynicism, empty busyness, and the folly of human ego. Come and see! The Christ child shall be born. 

This Sunday we will gather to celebrate with our children sharing their Christmas program in the 9 AM service and our youth sharing their band music in the second service. May this time of worship soften our souls as we travel this path together. 

Peace, 

Pastor Katie