Advent - a time of waiting and praying

Learn - The Advent Prayers in the Gospels

Advent is a time when we practice a dual waiting:

1. Waiting for the celebration of Jesus' first coming at the first Christmas.
2. Waiting for the restoration of the earth at Jesus' second coming.

We looked at Zechariah's prayer from Luke chapter 1 verses 68-79 and asked:

1. What were Zechariah and his fellow Jews waiting to be saved from?
2. What are we waiting to be saved from?

You can read our answers above. In summary:

• Zechariah and his people wanted to be able to serve God without fear; they were waiting for salvation from an oppressive foreign empire (the Romans), sin and death.
• We are waiting to be saved from:
• guilt and sinfulness
• sickness and death
• a destructive system of greed, war, destruction of the earth

Share - Norway, Herons and Rain

We shared some good news of various kinds:

• In Norway almost 100% of new car sales are EVs.
• Lots of wonderful rain has been blessing West Yorkshire.
• Several of us shared recent sightings of herons: one in Hampstead Heath and several more local.

Pray

We used the following Advent prayer from https://prayandfastfortheclimate.org.uk/:

"Lord God,

Who sent a star to call the Magi to Bethlehem

As witnesses to Christ’s birth:

Help us now to follow The Light of the World,

Witnessing to His love in worship and service

For the good of all the earth and the glory of your name."

We prayed for God's light to shine in the darkness of the sinful and destructive systems of the world:

1. At COP30, countries could not agree to include a statement about moving away from fossil fuels in the official statement. Pray for God to open the eyes of voters and leaders around the world to the destruction of our common home.
   
   
2. Pray for a blessing on the work and crops of the Jamaican farmers as they rebuild after Hurricane Melissa.
   
   
3. Pray for Ecosia’s campaign for a Nobel Prize in Climate and Planetary Health (Ecosia is an IT company who give their profits to climate action. They have raised €1m to initially fund the award).
   
   
4. Pray for unity in decisions about when the next scientific reports from the IPCC (Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change) will be published. Good decision making climate change requires good scientific data, and there are concerns that some countries are deliberately slowing down the process of producing the reports to slow down climate action.
   
   
5. As the Reform party (who are hostile to climate action) grow in popularity in the UK, pray that the truth about climate change will be heard and believed in public.

Please continue to pray about these things.

We will meet again in 2026 on January 21st, 7:30pm, location TBC (Facebook event).