Advent and Christmas 2015: Room at the Inn
Advent and Christmas 2015: Room at the Inn
Throughout Advent Ekklesia will be opening a daily ‘window’ onto our Christmas appeal theme – ‘Room at the Inn’: how to make room in our hearts, our churches, our lives and our world for the coming of a different order. We will discover that this can happen in a variety of different ways: welcoming the stranger (the current refugee crisis), combatting stigmatism and prejudice (HIV/AIDS, mental health issues and more), preserving the habitat (global warming and climate change), working for peacemaking and peace-building (the fractured situation throughout the Middle East) and more. Each day we will offer a meditation on a verse of Scripture, and a practical action to accompany prayer and self-examination in what is a penitential – but also profoundly hopeful – season.
4 December
“God looked for justice,
but behold, bloodshed;
for righteousness,
but behold, a cry!” (Isaiah 5. 7)
In Advent we are reminded of the very different realm God is inviting us to share. Where the world creates bloodshed and tears, God looks for justice and righteousness. As our bombs and missiles continue to fall on Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, we recognise God’s call and thirst for justice and peace.
Action: Help turn remembrance of bloodshed into active work for peace: http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/annualappeal2014