Advent Anticipation

It’s a restless early morning and I can’t sleep. I woke up several times to look at the clock only to find it an unreasonable hour to be awake, but it became even more irritable to stay in bed. If I was six I might attribute it to Christmas eagerness. If I was rational I might attribute it to a drastic weather change. One day it’s in the 20s and in less than 24 hours it is thirty degrees warmer and climbing. The clothes that you wore to stay warm one night become stifling the next. If I had a teenager living at home I might be fretful wondering if they were home yet – and I can hear enough cars outside to know that some are racing home even now. If I was agitated it could well be explained by the anxiousness of gift giving and tasks left to be done within a finite timeline. If I was a first-time expectant mother I might be unable to sleep wondering when the baby would come, how would it feel to give birth, would I know what to do with a baby and would I be able to give him all that he needed? But I’m not eager, or fretful, or agitated, or a waiting mother. Maybe it is advent anticipation. We are on the eve of change. The verse from the “Canticle of the Turning” that I have practiced over and over the past few weeks has become a base for this advent season.

Though I am small, my God, my all
You work great things through me
And your mercy will last from the depths of the past
To the end of the age to be.
Your very name puts the proud to shame,
And to those who would for you yearn
You will show your might, put the strong to flight
For the world is about to turn.
My heart shall sing of the day you bring
Let the fires of your justice burn
Wipe away all tears, for the dawn draws near
And the world is about to turn

My prayer for the congregation?

Dear God, We can sense your power and your presence in the day. The winds blow, the day dawns, and nothing is the same as the day before. Even though we feel too minute to make a great revolution, we know that over and over again the small and the powerless are made great though their statements of belief and their actions of faith. Let us wipe away our fears and be prepared to usher the changes in the world and in ourselves. It is not a time for rest. We can’t live as we did one day earlier for we are on the eve of a changing world as we anticipate the messiah. Amen.

(you have to embrace the Celtic undertones)
The Canticle of the Turning

My soul cries out with a joyful shout
That the God of my heart is great
And my spirit sings of the wondrous things
That you bring to the one who wait.
You fixed your sight on your servant’s plight
And my weakness you did not spurn
So from east to west shall my name be blessed.
Could the world be about to turn

My heart shall sing of the day you bring
Let the fires of your justice burn
Wipe away all tears, for the dawn draws near
And the world is about to turn

Though I am small, my God, my all
You work great things through me
And your mercy will last from the depths of the past
To the end of the age to be.
Your very name puts the proud to shame,
And to those who would for you yearn
You will show your might, put the strong to flight
For the world is about to turn.

Chorus

From the halls of power to the fortress tower
Not a stone will be left on stone
Let the king beware for your justice tears
Ev’ry tyrant from his throne
The hungry poor shall weep no more
For the food they can never earn
There are tables spread, ev’ry mouth be fed
For the world is about to turn

Chorus

Though the nations rage from age to age
We remember who holds us fast:
God’s mercy must deliver us
From the conqueror’s crushing grasp
This saying word that our forebears heard
Is the promise which holds us bound
Till the spear and rod can be crushed by God
Who is turning the world around.

My heart shall sing of the day you bring
Let the fires of your justice burn
Wipe away all tears, for the dawn draws near
And the world is about to turn