A Reflection for Advent

The Revd Canon Aidan Platten, Canon Precentor at Norwich Cathedral, shares a message for Advent.

Watch the video message above and read the full text below.

"I wonder what news your smart phone or tablet has brought you this morning.

Much of our news seems to be filled with doom and gloom and sadness and despair, and we get drawn in to doom-scrolling, and the world seems worse and worse the longer we look.

But we can look a bit harder and we can find stories that are cheerful, stories of hope, stories that actually bring a smile back to our face.

I wonder how your day may have begun today. Perhaps you, with thousands of others, have opened the little cardboard door of an Advent calendar and seen behind it some appetising chocolate or a simple Christmassy scene.

Or perhaps you are waiting till the evening to light your Advent candle and burn away the days of Advent. This season of waiting and longing and watching is a season of great hope.

We know what comes at the end of Advent. We know that there will be the joy of Christmas. We know that the Christ Child, the Emmanuel, the God with us, is what we are bidden to celebrate.

And now we have four weeks in which to prepare our hearts for the coming of Christ, to open our hearts to the Child of Bethlehem, to the One who is good news, who brings good news, and who will light up our life and the lives with whom we share ours."