Advent and Christmas

Advent and Christmas Message from Trinity School at River Ridge

“Moses at the burning bush was told to take off his shoes because the ground on which he stood was holy ground, and the incarnation means that all ground is holy ground because God not only made it but walked on it, ate and slept and worked and died on it.”
— Frederick Buechner

God created the heavens and the earth and declared them good. His intention from the beginning was to dwell with his people in this good creation. Genesis even speaks evocatively of the very sound of him walking in the garden in the cool of the day, looking for the man and the woman he had created. But in the shame of disobedience and nakedness before God, the sound of God’s footsteps had become a terror to the man and the woman, and they hid themselves and went into exile.

Ever since, God has been seeking his lost people, calling for them to return, and laying down his life to restore his covenant with them. He called to them through Moses and the Law, through judges and prophets, through kings and counselors. Then, in what might be called God’s most dangerous idea, he spoke to us through sending his Son. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

So the sound of God’s footsteps echoed again in the world — across the floor of a carpenter’s shop, in the rocky desert beyond the Jordan, along the many roads of Palestine, into a very different garden and eventually through the streets of Jerusalem to a hill called Golgotha where God made good on his covenant and won back his people.

May the Alpha and Omega bless you this season as you celebrate his coming and look for the time when, having made all holy, he will finally make all things new.