I have been following Virginia Theological Seminary’s #AdventWord 2020. Each day they put out a word that relates to the Advent season, and the day of this writing, the word is Rebuild.
I am intrigued by this word because it holds so much possibility. Lately I have been noticing the foundation of my garage. I don’t know how old it is, but it is a crumbly mess. As you can imagine, this causes all manner of problems. It is a situation that will have to be addressed, but I find it overwhelming to think about. Rebuilding a damaged foundation is a lot of work.
I wonder though what small but foundational things can be worked on now. Last night I was in a conversation talking about the difficulty of rebuilding relationships. How many people in the past few years have lost sight of what is important because of ideology or politics? How do we mend or rebuild that brokenness? How do we find the ways we might reconnect and not lose something precious?
Rebuilding is certainly harder when there has been abuse or cruelty. Sometimes real change has to happen and amends must be made. But how many times is the fracture about something silly, inconsequential, a misunderstanding? Those are the relationships worth repairing.
We have to rebuild our country with the coming of new leadership. We have to rebuild our lives in light of the pandemic. We will have to rebuild our church relationships after time away. Maybe we will have to rebuild good habits after the excesses of the holidays. Plenty of work to do.
The vision we hold for this rebuilding is the Kingdom of God. That is what we always strive to participate in, to build up. In this Advent season, gather your tools, prepare your hearts, watch for opportunities, and be ready to rebuild. We work with God to rebuild a broken world into a peaceable Kingdom. May it be so.