The four advent candles are lit preparing our way for the lighting of the Christ Candle in just a few short days on Christmas Eve. We know that many of our families travel or are with their families to celebrate Nochebuena on Christmas Eve, so we will gather as a church family to sing carols, celebrate the joy of this holy season, and to wish everyone a blessed season of hope, peace, joy, and love. Our annual Silver Tea will complete our celebration.

Advent is a season of waiting and expectation for Christmas – the birth of Christ, the Nativity of Jesus. This Advent season, our theme is “When Hope Takes Flesh: Advent for a World on Edge.” Each Sunday of Advent becomes an opportunity to acknowledge that the first Christmas didn’t arrive in peaceful times either; it broke into a landscape of imperial occupation, displaced families, and vulnerable people clinging to ancient promises. Be with us as we light the Advent candles of hope, peace, joy, and love, not as sentimental comforts but as acts of holy defiance: hope that refuses despair, peace that confronts injustice, joy that springs from solidarity, and love that literally took on skin and bone in a Bethlehem stable. It speaks to people who feel the weight of the world and whispers, This is exactly the kind of moment God enters. The birth of Christ isn’t an escape from a world on edge, it’s God’s answer to it.

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