DOES ADVENT TAKE THE CAKE?

Erin and I cannot thank all of you enough for coming out to enjoy your house and our home for this year's edition of our Advent Open House. We thoroughly enjoy this event every year and hope that you understand through our hospitality how much we treasure each of you and how much God has blessed our lives over the past year as we have journeyed together.

Coming home this afternoon, I couldn't help but think through the joy of last night - from those who were founding members of our congregation to little Connor Woodrow (the newest one born into our congregation) to the newest addition to Gabby, Lance, and Layla Williams' family who will be taking that crown from Connor almost any day now - and how Advent is a time where we not only remember Christ's anticipated coming, but how it is incumbent upon us to never fail to tell the story of God's love embodied in Christ to each other and the next generations so that the story may never be lost.

To that end, the picture you see at the top of the column (a cross section of Erin's latest masterpiece that you had the chance to taste last night) has a lot to tell us about why Advent is important.

You see, to simply admire Erin's cakes as works of art is nice (and the artistic part of her cakes is definitely important,) but only tells part of the story. 

One the cake was cut, you got to see that it was a majestic sweet combination of golden vanilla cake with chocolate filling.  When you your fork made the tantalizing journey first into the cake and then to your mouth, your taste buds immediately recognized the vanilla buttercream icing that was the perfect compliment to the interior ingredients that were so skillfully arranged to bring you to a state of dessert bliss.

To simply have admired the cake from afar would have left you with only part of the story, and you would have missed the best part of the whole thing.

We're coming down to the last 9 (soon to be 8) days of the Advent season, and it can be very tempting to take in the sights and sounds of the season, to get caught up in the logistics and politics of the season, making your lists, checking them thrice, so that no one will ever think you naughty, but simply nice.

My friends, don't fall in the trap of looking simply at the icing of the Advent cake.  Cut the cake, and taste what really makes the season so wonderfully sweet - celebrating the reality that God's love for the divinely created world and those within it that He would come to be one of us, the God of all eternity who would not settle for simply watching us 'from a distance,' but came to show us the way and show it was possible to be fully human and yet fully embody perfect love for God in every though, word, and deed, by what is done and what is not done.

Come join us this Wednesday, as noted author Parker Palmer shares with us the Risk of Incarnation as we conclude our Wednesday Night series for the season and the calendar year.  Come join us this Sunday, as we observe the Fourth Sunday of Advent, the Sunday of Love, and by all means make plans now to join us Christmas Eve @ 6:00 as we mark again the arrival of the Christ child with our Candlelight & Communion service.

May God's Richest Blessings be with You Today and Always, Lamar