The Third Sunday of Advent

The Third Sunday of Advent is upon us, “Stir Up Sunday,’’ as our Anglican siblings often refer to it from the Opening Collect:  “Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us...”  Stir up YOUR power… We need this timely reminder for God to stir up God’s power.

So often, for so many, we get mixed up and think life is about our own power getting stirred up within us to accomplish wondrous deeds.  As followers of the Risen Christ, our gift is to call upon God’s power to be stirred up, not our own. 

In the Season of Advent, we prepare our hearts and minds to recall that God’s power lay in the complete vulnerability of an infant in Palestine.  Mercy, that is powerlessness.

And so today, on the Third Sunday of Advent, we come to the altar seeking Christ’s power of integrity, authenticity, and vulnerability to be stirred up among us, that God’s bountiful grace and mercy may speedily help and deliver us. 

What might God’s power being stirred up among you today bring about in new and vulnerable ways?