Something's Coming . . .

December 5, 2014

Dear Friends,

Already we find ourselves approaching the end of the first of the four weeks of Advent. Among many other ways this season may be quite legitimately described, it is a season of expectation.  Not that we pretend that the Christ has not already and long since been born into this world and offered into our lives!  Rather that we expect his coming again, and that we are called all our days to renew our sense of his presence and activity in our living and in our world.  And so, yes, there is "something coming" as the West Side Story lyrics proclaim:

Could be! 
Who knows? 
There's something due any day; 
I will know right away, 
Soon as it shows. 
It may come cannonballing down through the sky, 
Gleam in its eye, 
Bright as a rose! 

See and hear it here: http://youtu.be/Rux2CkLWvcQ

But more appropriately, in this case the something coming exceeds any words we can provide of description.  Only God's own Word can adequately proclaim the coming of God's own Word incarnate.  The something coming is, of course, Someone.  And that Someone speaks a Word that renews creation.

This Sunday, Mark's Gospel introduces to the season the figure of John the Baptist who, in his person and dress and activity and word is a shouting proclamation that "something's coming."  See the extraordinary poetic presentation of John, The Man Who Was A Lamp, by John Shea on our Facebook page, Conversations at Mercer.

Advent peace,
John McGinty+