Advent Devotional by Dick Wright

Romans 13:11-12

And do this, understanding the present time. The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. (Romans 13:11)

It was freezing cold that Sunday night at John Knox Kirk Presbyterian Church back in the late 50’s. The high school youth group had gathered, myself their adult leader, though I was only in my early twenties. As often was the case, I had no particular plan how we would proceed once everyone had arrived. Didn’t matter.  Everyone seemed to like it that way.

Our church in Red Bridge had only mission status at that point, this first building we worshipped in, small with few amenities. We were blessed however with a meeting room that featured a glass wall looking out on a small patio lit solely by an old-fashioned gas light.

Not long after our hellos had been said, it began to snow outside, flakes the size of a quarter. Often on a night like this we might have driven to Suicide Hill in Brookside for sled riding. The class loved being outside, for instance, camping out all night to save a shelter house in the park for a Sunrise Easter Breakfast.  But tonight I felt moved to do something different. And so, after an opening prayer, I turned off all the lights in the room and asked the fifteen teenagers present to remain silent for the rest of the hour, their focus if they wanted on the snow we now watched falling fast and heavy. To end the hour, I spoke a closing prayer, turned the lights back on, and everyone went home.

Years since, several of those kids have told me, that evening proved the most meaningful religious occasion of their lives. I don’t doubt the silence felt awkward to some of them, but others waiting out the hour in quiet, say they were permanently touched by the wonder of experiencing, “God with us.”

Be still and hear the Lord.

Dick Wright