Advent is a larger-than-life season. These four weeks dare Christians to dream big, take on the world, and expect nothing less than God making all things truly new.
Such high hopes, however, can feel disconnected from where we actually live: our neighborhoods, relationships, day-to-day activities, and most of all, our bodies. We turn to Christmas to find divinity made flesh like us, but Advent does not always resonate with our limited, embodied humanity. Advent’s focus on how the world needs God to set things right can even lead us to believe that our bodies are the problem.
I have created Advent Made Flesh, an assorted collection of meditations for 2021, to propose a different Advent story: Advent is for bodies. God is coming not for the world in general but for embodied persons, material creatures, and the stuff that sustains life to its fullest. Advent is not for disparaging human embodiment but for reclaiming our bodies and humanity as well as the bodies and humanity of our neighbors.
Each meditation engages a scripture assigned for the day by the Revised Common Lectionary for Sundays and by The Book of Common Prayer Daily Office Readings for other days. Not all the days of Advent are included, but I hope that the devotions that are offered here may be edifying to you as you dream this Advent season.
I invite you to come back to the blog throughout these 27 days to read and respond to this series of posts. You can also find links to the Advent meditations on the advent made flesh page.
And I wish you a life-giving Advent this year.
Notes
Image of “Human Hand” is by Nsey Benajah on the Unsplash website
