Join us at Peoria Nazarene Church for our weekly worship gathering Sunday at 10:30 AM. You can also join us online via Youtube or Facebook.
Families are welcome to worship together for the season of Advent. Busy bags that go along with the sermon are available for kids at the welcome center each week.
Advent is the season of the dawn. The light is coming, we can see glimpses of pink and orange along the horizon, but the sun isn’t up yet. There are still long stretches of shadow and places of darkness. The noises of the day are barely audible as everything from animals to infants begin to rouse. Advent is the season of the dawn, where we live in the space between the darkness of a world without Christ and the light of a world with Christ; where we see the light coming, yet it hasn’t fully come.
While we observe this season of Christ’s birth, the coming of light, we are also reminded that we are still Advent people, living in the glow of the dawn. We no longer are people of the darkness, we are people of the light, even while Christ’s return is still before us. Romans 13 reminds us, “The night is nearly over; the day is almost here.” We are called and reminded that we are Advent people—people of the dawn. We live in the reality that the kingdom of God is now, yet is still to come in its fulfillment.
On the first Sunday of Advent we light the candle of hope, a reminder of the hope we have in Christ coming in a stable so long ago, but also a reminder of the hope we have that Christ will come again. It’s a reminder that we are people of light in a world that is still so often cloaked in darkness. And we are called to live, to love, to serve, to celebrate, to mourn, and to grieve—all in the light of hope. The light has come, and the light is coming.