To the Menaul School Community –
As the church enters into the season it calls “Advent,” we are called to wait.
Advent is the four weeks leading up to Christmas and literally means “coming.” It is when the church remembers waiting for the coming of Christ into the world on Christmas day.
Something unique about this “Advent-shaped” waiting is that it is decidedly not the kind of waiting that sits and doesn’t go anywhere. It is not a static, passive, or inactive waiting. In addition to remembering the waiting for the birth of Christ, Advent is also the time that the church remembers that it is also waiting for Christ’s future promise. This is the hope that our present world will one day be restored in full and that God’s justice, peace, and righteousness will have the final say.
In Advent, we hope for the healing of the hurt and tormented.
We desire comfort for the grieving and lonely. We yearn for systems which currently oppress the broken and vulnerable to be exposed and overturned. Because of our future hope, and because the church believes that God’s promise will actually come to be, this “Advent-shaped” hope is active. It means we are agents and partners in helping this future peace to happen now. Presbyterian Christians have this saying they like to repeat to remind themselves of what we believe: “To believe is to do.”
This spirit of active waiting has been put on full display by our Menaul students in the months leading up to the Advent season.
On Saturday, October 29, three faculty, two students, and a furry friend represented Menaul at Rio Grande Food Project’s 7th annual Walk to End Hunger. It was a beautiful, crisp, cool morning and was a great opportunity to learn about an organization doing meaningful work to alleviate hunger in our community.
Also held over Thanksgiving break was “Every Living Thing” – a day long youth retreat held at First Presbyterian Church and led by the Santa Fe Presbytery. Four Menaul upper school students had a fun time getting to know students from other churches in Albuquerque. They hung out with one another while celebrating Every Living Thing in God’s good Creation!
In Advent, we live between the first and the second coming of Christ.
We look to the past to remember that Christ came into the world. We remember the joy, hope, and peace that His coming gave. We also look to the future in expectant hope that Christ will return, bringing with him the final justice, righteousness, and love that He promises. We are assured that although God’s reign has not yet come to be, it will. Christ has come! Christ is risen! Christ will come again!
Menaul students have taught me about Advent this season.
They have represented for me, a small glimmer of what this hopeful, movement-oriented waiting looks like. Thank you, Menaul family. Happy Advent and Merry Christmas.
Peace
Rev. Scanlon
P.S. – Be sure to join the Menaul community as we kick off the Christmas season at Light Up Menaul on Friday, December 16, from 5pm-7pm! There will be songs, lights, games, food, and plenty of cheer! Join us!