The Weary World Rejoices

This Advent, the sermon series is based on a book by Lifeway Women called Advent: the Weary World Rejoices. Here is a small taste of what to expect this month. The full line from “O Holy Night,” a famous Christmas hymn, is “A thrill of hope– the weary world rejoices.” This resonates with me, and perhaps it does for you too, even though it was translated into English in 1855. The world has been weary since Genesis 3, the Fall. We are weary of the darkness, the pain, the doubt, the fear. We wait. Advent is a season of anticipation and of waiting. What sustains us is the thrill of hope in our waiting. That hope is that Jesus our Savior came to earth. Today, we stand on the other side of the timeline. We look back at the first and second Advent. We wait for the Messiah to return, to defeat the enemy, to drive away darkness, for good this time. We wait for all things to be made new. We know the rest of the story: that the promised Messiah came, died for the world’s sins, is risen and in doing so, conquered death. Jesus, our thrill of hope, is the reason the weary world rejoices. 

In Christ,
Rev. Elyse Milligan Nielsen