Clergy Collective Worship: Advent and Revolution

In our clergy collective worship this week, we lit the first candle in the advent wreath and considered how advent is the start of the Christian year and a time for calm reflection and renewal: a time of revolution. We considered the importance of finding calm and ending conflict. We linked this to Isaiah 64:11. That even though ‘Our holy and beautiful house, where our ancestors praised you, has been burned with fire, and all that we treasure lies in ruins,’ those affected found light and hope was born. They pledged to turn a terrible experience into something positive: ‘They shall beat their sword into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war no more.’ Isaiah 2: 3-4.