Advent is about anticipation. We’re awaiting something. Something is about to happen.
That’s certainly describes our situation these days. The finance industry (Wall Street) has crashed. We’re all in a serious situation, but exactly what hasn’t really hit home yet. We’re not sure how we’re going to be affected. (Although we have a hint if we’ve checked our RRSP portfolios).
How many workers will be laid off? How many businesses will go under? Are we entering something like the Great Depression again, or is this just another relatively short term blip on the charts. We await with anticipation, and some trepidation.
Our political worlds have changed too, after so many elections. We have another federal government, and in the City of Vancouver and some of our municipalities, new mayors and councillors are taking office this month. The Americans will have a new president next month. We wait to see what these leaders will do. There will be change, but we’re by any means certain what it will be.
In our church life, change is coming also. The leaders of the national Anglican Church of Canada have just cut budgets sharply (as you can read in the Anglican Journal). But so far there are few details that would indicate exactly how it will affect us. Our own diocese and most parishes depend to varying degrees on investment income, and Diocesan Treasurer Jim Stewart indicated last month that will be down sharply. We will have to retrench, it appears. How?
One could go on and talk about change coming in the international Anglican Communion, or through our diocesan strategic planning process. There will be change—of what kind we do not really know.
We await with anticipation. But we are an Advent people, and await with the knowledge that whatever changes the world brings—in the financial, political, or whatever arena—we will have strength to face them. For of course we know Who is coming, how Advent ends.