The word advent means “coming” or “to come” and Advent is that season of the Christian year when we prepare our hearts and minds to celebrate Christ’s coming at Christmas and Christ’s coming again in glory.  We acknowledge that in some sense we are living in between those two appearances of Christ.  We are waiting – celebrating and giving thanks for what God has already done in the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and anxiously awaiting what God will do when Christ’s Kingdom comes in its fullness.  As we seek to be the Church, the body of Christ, in this liminal space we are called to wait expectantly, to be prepared, in order that we might receive Christ whenever and however he comes to us.  The prophet Isaiah reminds us that we wait in hope because the day is coming when swords will be beaten into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks.  In the birth of Jesus that new day has begun and that changes everything.

The Christian year revolves around the life of Jesus, beginning with his promised coming and birth in the seasons of Advent and Christmas, moving toward his passion, death, and resurrection marked by the seasons of Lent and Easter, turning towards the birth of the Church at Pentecost, and then to a long reflection on the life and witness of his followers in the months following Pentecost, throughout the summer and Fall.  The journey culminates this week with what is known as Christ the King Sunday or the Reign of Christ Sunday, where we focus on the Lordship or reign of Christ.  Using the crucifixion narrative from the gospel of Luke (23:33-43) and Paul’s letter to the Philippians (2:1-11), we’ll see how Christ’s power is markedly different from the rulers of this world.  In Christ we encounter a kingdom where power is expressed in humility and love, and that makes all the difference for those who follow Christ as Savior and Lord.  

Bishop Kenneth H. Carter, Jr. will be at Davidson UMC on Sunday, November 13 for all three services. His sermon, The Peaceable Kingdom will be the text from Isaiah.

Bishop Carter is the resident bishop of the Western North Carolina Conference. He earned degrees from Columbus College, Duke Divinity School, the University of Virginia, and Princeton Theological Seminary. He has served as president of the Council of Bishops, a  moderator of the Commission on a Way Forward, the chair of the Board of Ordained Ministry and the Committee on Episcopacy, and as a conference delegate. He is the author of 18 books. He was a local church pastor for 28 years and has preached in 20 countries on 4 continents. Bishop Carter’s hope for the church is that she will rediscover an orthodox Christian faith that offers the radically inclusive grace of God to all people and that calls every follower of Jesus to inner holiness, missional compassion, justice rooted in the gospel, and a hopeful story of transformation.