Each year, through mother church, God gives us this joyful season when we prepare ourselves in an expectant hope to await and embrace boldly the joyful coming of the Lord with renewed hearts and repented minds.Advent is the period preceding the Christmas season.
The word Advent from its latin origin means‘’ the coming forth’’. Traditionally , Advent has been a time of spiritual reflection of the joyful anticipation of the second coming of the Lord as well as His Nativity. The journey of advent demands that we renew our faces and hearts through repentance, conversion and forgiveness so as to live in participation of the overflowing grace of God which accompanies this blissful season.
Contemplating on this graceful season vis-à-vis the current crisis of faith in the church , the spiritual ,moral and political crisis in our contemporary world , in a desperate quest I ask myself and world at large re-echoing the statements of Pope emeritus Benedict XVI ‘’Is the humanity of our time still eagerly awaiting for a savior?’’.
I ask this because today everything is dark, we live in an era where human events seemed to be tempting the world to discouragement and despair. God seems no longer to be the first principle. All there is, is power and riches, appeasement and concealment is the order of the day such that the truth actually does not exist. We live in an era where the normative standard regarding sexuality has eventually collapsed and there is entirely the eruption of a normalcy of a world which is sexually charged.
The question therefore reminds that how can a society that doesn’t know God welcome him in such a season into its midst?. We must not forget that “when God dies in a society, its true freedom dies”, and this is the result of the challenges we experience in our country today.
It is necessary therefore that in this season of refreshment ,the individual embraces the vibrant message of the gospel of live which is at the heart of Jesus message “I came that you may have life and have it abundantly “ {John 10;10}.
Situating these words of Jesus to our epoch I dare to say “Jesus is coming again that you may have life and have it abundantly”. It is by accepting this bold message of Christ that we may become truly credible as “lights of the world, the city built on the hill top which cannot be hidden” {Mathew 5:14}, hence powerful forces in services against the evil power of destruction and darkness which seems to consume our world.
The gospel should no longer be perceived as merely an external system frustrating our lives but rather as a living experience which is to be made present in our lives day by day in this gracious season. It is only through this that we can together with the disciples who on their way to emmaus upon experiencing a vision of the Lord could say “Stay with us Lord Jesus”.
Throughout our endeavor to live the gospel radically, we must defend life and the truth despite the strong opposition the devil gives us by accusing us day and night before our God rendering our efforts hopeless. We must all realise that any true conversion or Reformation must start with our very innermost self, otherwise all the structural reforms in our world and churches would be useless.
Source: Divine Agyenim-Boateng
