For the second year in a row, the ICOC women’s website, WomenToday.international, is posting a new article every day, appropriate for a quiet time devotional, from December 1st until Christmas Day. Written by our sisters in churches around the world, the overarching theme this year is “The Spirit of Christmas.” Beginning with a brilliant piece on The Spirit of Peace by Robin Weidner, the series encompasses topics such as the spirit of anticipation; the spirit of faith; the spirit of wonder; the spirit of surrender; the spirit of forgiveness, of humility, of giving, of light, of doubt, and more, written by women in our churches from Mexico to Australia, from women on every continent.
Though in the ICOC we have no traditional liturgy for the season of Advent, many of us have fond memories and great respect for believers who sincerely celebrate the coming of Christmas with some sort of special Advent observance. Derived from the Latin adventus, “advent” is a translation of the Greek word, parousia, which refers to the coming of the Christ – both his coming in flesh at his birth in Bethlehem and his second coming at the end of all things. The exact origins of the Advent season have been lost, but it seems as though from three or four hundred years after Christ, many believers regarded these weeks before Christmas as a time of penitence and fasting.
However you choose to celebrate, in whatever your circumstances here at the close of 2021, may these devotionals serve to fortify God’s Spirit in all of us.