Awaiting the Light

by Petey Crowder, Executive Pastor
November 27, 2019

Every year CPC joins with Christians around the world for a season known as Advent. Advent is the four-week period leading up to Christmas and one of two seasons of preparation on the Christian calendar. That simply means that we spend an extended period of time getting ready for something really, really important!

If you’re anything like our family, Christmas certainly means preparation! We spend months preparing for Christmas in some form or fashion. There are travel plans and logistics, gift lists, shopping, invitations, menus, decorating . . . and the list goes on! The preparation can feel exhausting at times, but we know that the effort is essential for creating a meaningful experience.

This is true with Advent, as well. As a church community, we want to spend four weeks intentionally preparing our hearts for one of the greatest moments in history: the birth of our Savior! Our worship experiences will be focused on darkness and light, and our sermon series is called “Our Light Has Come.” As hard as it is, we need to spend time sitting with the darkness. The purpose is to remind ourselves that we all experience seasons of want, brokenness, pain, and suffering. We do this so that our hearts are ready to hear the good news on Christmas day, good news that God Himself has come to drive the darkness away.

We want to intentionally prepare your hearts for this joyous occasion by preaching texts from the book of Isaiah, showing that the world was just as restless hundreds of years before Jesus came as it is today! It is a world in need of help, and Isaiah paints beautiful pictures of what this promised help will look like. Just like the people of the Old Testament, we need a Savior to step into our mess and that same light to shine in our darkness. The beautiful thing about Jesus is He comes for each and every one of us—a light for the whole world.

To help us sit in the stark contrast between darkness and light, we are intentionally preparing the sanctuary to visually reflect that same journey. Therefore, this year you’ll notice we’re intentionally withholding the lush green and bright red from the sanctuary for most of December. We hope the beautifully simple design we’ve created will invite you to consider the darkness and draw your own heart into preparation for the arrival of the Light.

The best part of any season of preparation comes from the crescendo of all the efforts. The work of many hands, for many months, comes together and creates a beautiful mosaic of family and celebration. In the same way, we hope Advent is a season of preparation for us as a church that pulls us toward the light of Jesus, that we may find ourselves basking in the glory of our Savior, the One who has come for us.