G. Archer Frierson
Austin Seminary Board of Trustees
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Advent Devotional for December 8
• Matthew 3:1-12
Advent makes me think of my father. He was a maintenance man for a mall and a pastor. This combination of being worker and pastor manifested itself in many oddly beautiful interactions for my brothers and me. Every day waiting for dad to come home from work was a wild adventure. One day he showed up with a 3-foot-tall solid Lego train. Another day he might bring home some very cool high schoolers, with no place else to stay, with their loud music to liven up our after-school hours. Another day he had a clownishly huge, real Hershey’s candy bar that a store was using for staging. Other days huge, muscle- and tattoo-laden men, fresh out of prison, would show up looking for a place to land, and they would share wild stories of life in far-off places. Some days he would pick us up in his work van and we could ride around in the back with all the tools.
In a world of immediacy, waiting is a hard thing to do. Waiting is what we do for a light. Waiting is what you do for your teenager. Waiting is incongruent with your plan. What we can sometimes forget is that we are not being held up by God. God doesn’t run late. The language we need to acquire is “actively waiting”! We are not supposed to be bored waiting. We are not to be still while we are waiting. We are to be like the parables of the bridesmaids and the slaves, busy waiting. Actively waiting.
John the Baptist crying out. Isaiah the prophet crying out. The scriptures are crying out, telling us of the awesome gifts that wait for us at home. We need our childlike excitement about the messiah, for beyond all measure is the gift we have been given.
This Advent season I pray we are able regain that childlike excitement. Find again what we are waiting for. Christ is the way; Christlike should be the way we wait! Amen.
Reverend J.D. Herrera
Vice President for Enrollment Management
For the glory of God and to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary is a seminary in the Presbyterian-Reformed tradition whose mission is to educate and equip individuals for the ordained Christian ministry and other forms of Christian service and leadership; to employ its resources in the service of the church; to promote and engage in critical theological thought and research; and to be a winsome and exemplary community of God's people.We hope that you are preparing the way for the Lord in your life as you read these meditations and prayers. And, we hope this Advent season is a meaningful one for you. Please know that Austin Seminary’s dedicated, diverse, and loving community of faith is not complete without you. Did you know?
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