Believe it or not, yesterday was the first Sunday of Advent.  Christmas is upon us.  "Level every mountain," says Isaiah, "raise every plain.  Make the rough smooth, make the way straight.
     "And all flesh shall see the glory of the Lord."
     Indeed.  Isaiah is telling us to get ready, to get ready to commemorate, once more, the culmination of centuries of prediction and memory, to make ourselves ready to remember, again, that God is faithful, that what God promises he will surely bring to pass.
     Advent is about memory, the memory of God.  It brings to mind the things of God that, in the words of Gary Schmidt and Susan Felcher, may "have," for many of us, "disappeared."
     In this, Advent validates everything about who God is. Advent tells that we can remember with hope.  Advent reminds us that we can believe in the worth of the past, the past through God has been working to this very day.  It underscores the purpose of existence.
     Advent says to us that what seems to have disappeared (that is, for many of us, God) hasn't disappeared at all.  In the person of Jesus, the point of Advent, God has come, and God is here, completely and wonderfully present, available, and new.