Advent always comes to us as a season of waiting, longing, and preparation. We begin the new year of the Church calendar not on Christmas Day, but in this season of preparation that invites us to make space for God to show up in new ways. This year our worship series invites us to explore the idea of “Spacious Faith.”
How does our understanding of faith create space to hold all of life’s realities? How does our practice of faith create room for all the ways God shows up to us and to others? How do we hold space for the many different witnesses to God’s goodness?
Spacious Faith is not faith that ignores reality. Instead, it is a way of trusting that God meets us with generosity, not scarcity. It is the conviction that the Divine presence can hold more than we think. More questions. More wonder. More stories. More possibilities for healing and renewal.
Advent is a good home for exploring these kinds of questions. The stories we hear in these weeks are stories of people who learned what it means to move toward the unknown. John calls the crowds to turn toward a new way of life. Mary says ‘yes’ to a future she cannot fully understand. Joseph chooses compassion in a moment that could have been shaped by fear. The shepherds welcome a message that disrupts their night and the wise ones follow the signs toward an unclear destination. Each of them leans into a spaciousness created by God’s surprising work.
In our worship series, we pair this theme with the witness of the four Gospel writers. Each writer offers a particular vantage point into the mystery of Christ’s coming. Together they remind us that there is no single path to approaching Divine revelation. Matthew makes sure to connect to the past. Mark strips things down to the most important details. Luke lifts up the vulnerable and sings of social reversal. John invites us into a cosmic view that is greater than we can fully conceive. Each voice widens the horizon of our understanding.
By holding these four witnesses together, we practice a form of Spacious Faith. We learn to trust that God can be encountered in many ways. We remember that the story of Jesus is always larger than one angle or one interpretation.
As we light the candles each week, my hope is that we feel ourselves invited toward wonder. Advent does not ask us to have everything figured out. It does not demand certainty. It asks us to make just enough room for God to meet us again.