Advent quotes!

Advent is one of my favorite seasons. I love the hope, the joy, the holy anticipation of new birth.

I also love collecting, pondering, and stretching my heart, mind and spirit with quotes – tiny bits of wisdom from others that nourishes my soul and gives me strength for this journey.

2020 has been challenging for all of us, so today I am going to share some of my recent Advent quotes I have read so you too can consider them and perhaps their words will lighten your path. I have written these in my journal.  Brought them into my prayers. Allowed them to soak into my core for encouragement, affirmation, and wisdom.    Enjoy!

The expectation of Advent is anchored in the event of God’s incarnation. The more I come in touch with what happened in the past, the more I come in touch with what is to come. The Gospel not only reminds me of what took place but also of what will take place. In the contemplation of Christ’s first coming, I can discover the signs of his second coming. By looking back in meditation, I can look forward in expectation. By reflection, I can project; by conserving the memory of Christ’s birth, I can progress to the fulfillment of his kingdom. I am struck by the fact that the prophets speaking about the future of Israel always kept reminding their people of God’s great works in the past. They could look forward with confidence because they could look backward with awe to Yahweh’s great deeds.  Henri Nouwen

One of the essential paradoxes of Advent: that while we wait for God, we are with God all along, that while we need to be reassured of God’s arrival, or the arrival of our homecoming, we are already at home. While we wait, we have to trust, to have faith, but it is God’s grace that gives us that faith. As with all spiritual knowledge, two things are true, and equally true, at once. The mind can’t grasp paradox; it is the knowledge of the soul.   Michelle Blake

In the silence of a midwinter dusk, there is a sound so faint that for all you can tell it may be only the sound of the silence itself. You hold your breath to listen. You are aware of the beating of your heart. The extraordinary thing that is about to happen is matched only by the extraordinary moment just before it happens. Advent is the name of that moment. Frederick Buechner

No small part of Mary’s emotional weight for many women is the way in which the church she has so often used her as an ideal of passive, submissive femininity. But others claim her as a model of strength. I treasure Mary as a biblical interpreter, one who heard and believed what God told her, and who pondered God’s promise in her heart, even when, as the Gospel of Luke describes it, it pierced her soul like a sword. This is hardly passivity, but the kind of faith that sustains Christian discipleship. Kathleen Norris

The season of Advent means there is something on the horizon the likes of which we have never seen before … What is possible is to not see it, to miss it, to turn just as it brushes past you. And you begin to grasp what it was you missed, like Moses in the cleft of the rock, watching God’s [back] fade in the distance. So stay. Sit. Linger. Tarry. Ponder. Wait. Behold. Wonder. There will be time enough for running. For rushing. For worrying. For pushing. For now, stay. Wait. Something is on the horizon. Jan L. Richardson

Advent is both a beginning and an end, an alpha and an omega of the church’s year of grace. Too often considered merely a season of p r e p a r a t i o n f o r t h e a n n u a l commemoration of Christ’s birth, this rich and many-layered season is actually designed to prepare the Christian for the glorious possibilities of the parousia. It is a season of longing expectation —“Come, Lord Jesus” (Revelation 22:20).  William G. Storey

Note:  I don’t know about you, but I didn’t know the word: Parousia.  I looked it up.  It is another term for second coming.

God gives God. That is the gift God always ultimately gives. Because nothing is greater and we have no greater need, God gives God. God gives God, and we only need to slow long enough to unwrap the greatest Gift with our time: time in His Word, time in His presence, time at His feet.” Ann Voskamp

What is your favorite Advent quote? 

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