The anticipation of Advent is the promise that love wil no longer be accompanied by suffering. Int his week's passage, we look closer at Love. It is vulnerable, but it also changes things. As people of love, we will experience pain but the promise of Jesus makes it worth it.

Joy is the virtue for this third week of Advent. It is the emotion that is always relational and therefore can be felt even in the midst of turmoil when one feels completely loved and connected. Isaiah puts into words the feeling of joy that emanates in our soul when we recognize God’s face is available to us.

The second week of Advent leads us to the virtue of Hope. Even the most devoted of Christ-followers are not immune to the suffering of hopelessness. In the song of Zechariah, we are given a picture of our eternal hope that fuels our survival.

We begin the Advent season looking at the virtue of Peace. David’s art in Psalm 25 paints one of stress and turmoil that we all identify with living in a broken world. The peace we find within the midst of chaos is a sovereign God.

Our final week of our series Saints in the Storm we meet Kara Tippetts whose story is filled with grace and love in the midst of pain and death. Her story challenges us to embrace, and even search for God’s presence in our joy, tragedy, pain, mundane, ordinary, and common. Then to invite others to pursue the Maker alongside us.

In our third week of looking to the saints who have paved the way for us, we meet Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer points the way for us to speak out for those who are being excluded; to be aware of those who have no voice and be thier voice in positions of influence.

Our second saint in our series Saints in the Storm was Daudi Okelo from 20th century Uganda. He focused on teaching faith to children at the ripe age of 14 instead of turning his attention to politics or disputes. We can follow his example by directing our focus to teaching our own children identity and self, as well as introducing them to the love of Christ.

We conclude our study of Ruth and the importance community plays in our salvation story with the final scene drawing out a “to be continued….” The act of our redemption was completed solely by Jesus, yet our love story moves forward in how we live out “the good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them” (Eph 2:10).

Our study of Ruth continues to shape for us the varied paths to the redeemer. In our passage this week, Naomi’s guidance for Ruth serves for us an example in the importance of timing and recognizing the individuality of a person’s experience as we introduce them to Jesus.

As we continue the story of Ruth, we examine the allegory that is committing to community. Just as Ruth experienced blessing afforded by the way in which Israel functioned as a people, so too should those around us experience a space in which they are so deeply provided for and thus set the stage to meet their redeemer.