“Advent is an abrupt disruption in our 'ordinary time'...an utterly new year, new time, new life. Everything begins again..." While the world around us wraps up another year hoping for increased consumer spending and waiting for annual reports on profits, the church has already stepped into a new time, to begin a season of hoping and waiting for something of much greater significance than profits or spending: "Advent invites us to awaken from our numbed endurance and our domesticated expectations to consider our life afresh in the light of new gifts that God is about to give" Walter Brueggemann
