Heaven and Earth Advent Study

Hello Friends,

You are invited to join me with Bishop Will Willimon as we journey through Advent together. Here is Bishop Willimons devotional for the first week of Advent.

Welcome to Advent.

Each week leading up to Christmas, I’ll be sharing a short reflection drawn from my book, Heaven and Earth: Advent and the Incarnation. I wrote it with the hope that we might journey together through this season—not by escaping the world’s mess, but by watching for how God shows up right in the thick of it.

Chapter 1: Meanwhile

Scripture: Mark 13:24–37

“And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.” —Mark 13:27

Reflection:

The first Sunday of Advent delivers a jolt. Instead of cozy manger scenes or sentimental anticipation, Jesus begins with apocalyptic imagery: the sun dimming, the moon fading, the heavens trembling. It is not the gentle beginning we might prefer. But then again, Advent rarely gives us what we expect.

We like to imagine the world humming along predictably—steady routines, manageable challenges, a measure of control. But Jesus speaks of a world shaken, a cosmos unsettled. Not because God delights in chaos, but because divine disruption is often the form mercy takes. Before something new can be born, something old must give way.

Advent confronts us with the truth that the God we worship is not committed to propping up our illusions of stability. We might wish for a polite deity who quietly approves our plans; instead we meet a God who enters history with enough power to unsettle heaven and earth—and enough love to gather us in the midst of it.

Jesus insists that times of upheaval are not signs of God’s absence but opportunities for God’s arrival. The shaking of the heavens is not destruction but preparation. God is clearing away what cannot save us to reveal the One who can.

Those of us who have constructed tidy, efficient, predictable lives�