The season of Advent often feels like you’re standing just at the edge of dawn. Have you ever been up in the morning for a sunrise? Then you know exactly what I’m talking about: The sky is still dim. The world is quiet. Yet there is just enough light on the horizon to tell you that morning is coming. And the light…it grows. Something good is on the way. Something worth waiting for.
Our Gospel reading today invites us to live in that space. To wait…to watch for the light. To trust in it…even when the night feels long. To trust that God is already at work, stirring new beginnings.
This Advent, our focus is on hope, and especially on how hope is renewed through transformation. In today’s Gospel, John the Baptist reminds us that God’s work in us is about refinement. The Spirit’s fire does not burn us down. It clears away what no longer gives life, so that love can shine more freely through us.
People come to John, asking their honest, practical questions. They wonder:
- What does real change look like?
- What does repentance look like in everyday life?
- How do we get ready for the one who is coming?
When John answer them, he does not give them abstract theology. No, he gives them ordinary faith. He says: be generous and share what you have. Be fair in your work. Do not use your position or power to harm others. In other words, live in ways that make room for love.
That is where this Gospel meets us. Not in dramatic gestures, but in daily choices. In how we treat our neighbor. In how we speak to one another. In how we respond when we are tired, frustrated, or afraid. John’s call is down to earth because God’s coming is always down to earth.
John speaks of a refining fire, the fire of God’s love that burns away what blocks our hearts. It clears the clutter so that we can recognize Christ when he comes. Not only in Bethlehem long ago, but here and now. In Owatonna. In this moment. In a world that feels anxious, divided, and worn thin.
That is the quiet power of Advent. We are not only remembering something that happened in the past. We are opening ourselves to what God is doing in us today. We allow the light of Christ to reach the places we usually guard, the places shaped by fear, resentment, or exhaustion, and we trust that God can renew them with grace.
Imagine what that might look like:
- A softened heart.
- A conversation approached with patience instead of anger.
- A willingness to let go of something that has weighed on you for too long.
This is how hope takes root, not because life suddenly becomes easy, but because God meets us exactly where we are.
In the narration text of our cantata today, there is this line. The first time I read it, it caught my attention. It is a simple line that captures Advent well: “He promised he would come, and so, we waited.” He promised he would come, and so, we waited. Our waiting is not empty. It is active and expectant. The dawn is already rising.
So may this season of Advent open your heart to God’s refining love. May the Gospel shape how you live and love this week. And may the thrill of hope, growing quietly like morning light, guide you toward Christ who comes again and again.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
Test Driving Theology 