Advent Year C: Worship Course

Advent has very little to do with preparing to receive a baby, even a holy baby, and everything to do with preparing for the One who would teach us a new way of being fully human and therefore a renewed way of being the people of God. And yes that One, the fully human and divine one, came as an infant.

Advent in the church life cycle has come to mean a season of longing, waiting and preparation. We are longing for, waiting for and preparing for the coming of the kingdom of God in our midst. Certainly at this time in human history we are longing for renewal, restoration and recreation as individuals and as a society.

This Advent resource is intended to take you through the season by reflecting on the Sunday readings that the Revised Common Lectionary set for us. For each of four days we reflect on one reading and then on the fifth day we reflect on the theme of the week as a whole. There is also a discussion guide for those who want to study in a group or who might like to journal their response to the reflections. The course is designed this way so that preachers, leaders of worship, and the devout may enter more fully into the liturgical season and so that the personal and communal experience may be seamless.

Week One: Disturbance as a Sign of the nearness of the Kingdom

Before the new comes the old must give way. All change changes the things of before. Even good change still unsettles, dislodges, and reorders things. It was the same with the coming of Christ. Even though he was the fulfilment of the Hebrew prophets and law his coming shook everything up, so much so that, that many could not recognise him as Messiah. And so it is for us. Even though we desire to be open to the teachings of Jesus and receive the same spirit into our lives and follow him on the way of life, his “arrival” shakes us up and unsettles us. At least, if we are actually hearing the story and seeking to live out his teachings! So every year as we prepare ourselves as individuals and as communities of the faithful we go through the process of being “awakened” to the good news, of being prepared to receive it.

Week Two: Preparing the Way

It is wonderful to know that God is creating a pathway for us. And it is challenging to know that we too, like John the Baptist, have a role to play in helping prepare the way for others! We are not called to be passive recipients only but also participants.

Week Three: The Purpose of all this disturbance is so that we can know Joy

I am comforted and encouraged to be reminded that all this disturbance has a purpose and that purpose is joy for us and joy for others.

Week Four: The One we are waiting for will turn everything upside down – and that’s a good thing!

At last some of our readings tell the Christmas story as we know it and yet even here the focus is on how this holy one will change everything and will be good news to those who are currently unimportant. This Christmas story is comforting but not comfortable, is family orientated but not about our little nuclear family gathered around a Christmas tree but about the family of all. This is a story of outrageous love and inclusion.

Download the Course

Companions on the Way_Advent Year C_2024.pdf

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