Let us pray: O God you can be an advent god sometimes, hinting at the promise of better things to come, reassuring us that a finite amount of waiting will lead to the awaited for event, and surprising us by showing up early, in the unexpected place, at the unexpected time. You are a “keep us on our toes” God, an advent God. Amazing. Amen.

The temptation of course, after four months of not having led worship, occasionally not having even attended worship at all, and four months of deep diving into a subject that is a passion for me, and which was full of wonderful insight and amazing discovery is to just let loose and tell you all about it.

A very small percentage of you might find that moderately interesting. A much larger percentage of you would likely make sure to spread the word that offering a sabbatical is a risky thing to do. And in all of that what was wonderful and amazing to me, would likely end up being boring and confusing to you.

So, I will resist the temptation, and instead try to do what is always the proper responsibility of the preacher – to help create connection with God, to reveal the ways in which our lives are in touch with and touched by the divine presence.

It's been a bit of an advent for me already. I don't usually spend four months preparing for a reflection. And while I didn't specifically do that this time either, it is true that I've had the gift of more time to imagine what I would be led to speak about in this my first Sunday back.

I also heard this week some very clear and insightful reflections on just how the advent season is experienced in the frenzy of modern day life. Worship in advent offers the opportunity to take a step outside of the rest of our weekly walking (probably it is more accurate to call it our weekly racing) and slow down. It offers the opportunity to deaden the pace of travel through time – the horizontal progress (although I use that term “progress” aware of the apparent ambiguity it creates) the horizontal direction that is described by the comings, goings and to-doings of our lives, especially as they are propelled by the extra expectations of an impending Christmas, and instead go vertical – standing still to go deeper into the heart of who we are, and prospecting that depth to find out more about whose we are.

That was one of the great pleasures of the past four months for me. I could stand still and go deeper, into the heart of who I am and who we are – in all the intersecting rings that define the “who” of that statement: people who attend worship at Yellowknife United Church, Yellowknifers, family members, employees, northerners, Christians, quilters, cooks, retirees, we could go on and on naming all the circles to which we belong. I could go deeper into the heart of who we are, and the mysterious, mystical and embarrassingly obvious ways that God occupies our body, heart and soul.

I think an expected outcome of this opportunity to go deeper is to experience some kind of transformation. There are many who would say that the main purpose of the gathered faith community is to offer the opportunity for transformation.

But transformation is also about the unexpected, the surprise of previously undiscovered gems, the delight of finding things out about who and whose we are that had previously passed us by. And that is exactly what advent is about – a measured progress leading in predictable ways to an expected event, and the popcorn popping, fireworks exploding, sunlight bursting from behind a cloud, revelations of God among us already – even as we wait, even though we were looking in a different direction, even though it stops us short and perhaps even annoys us because of the way it slowed our pace, and led us in a new direction. A wild goose chase that leads us to the goose that laid the golden egg?

And so, if the past four months was my advent already, what kind of transformation did it spark for me?

I never, not even for a moment, thought that my research would lead me so clearly on a journey of hope. I've always been a glass half full kind of person – generally optimistic – and ready to find the good in people, places and situations more than the bad. I had positive thoughts about the things I was going to read about, think about and write about, but it never dawned on me that the little nano subject I was interested in would reveal to me one of the most exciting things happening in our world today. I was curious and wanted to learn more about a little subject that had some potential to be something bigger, but I never imagined that my curiosity would reveal that subject as simply a new window through which we can look at the whole world and the connection between the world and God.

Should I be so surprised? How many times have I said – on occasions like this – in reflections on a Sunday morning, or in church meetings, both local, regional and even national, that God is a God of surprises, that God shows up unexpectedly, that what we see is like looking through a window, and if we move to a different window, the view and the things revealed to us will look different.

Well surprise is not surprise if we are expecting it. So it's okay that I was surprised – that's part of the joy of going deeper.

And what is this hope that came so surprisingly to me? It is that I was not in the least expecting that I would discover deep in the ethic, deep in the consciousness, deep in the passion of a small, but still significantly large in numbers, counter-cultural community of geeks: super bright, super motivated, and supremely passionate people, the belief that they can change the world for the better, that their work (although many of them would call it play), their algorithms, their wedding of machine and instruction is the best hope for solving the world's problems. If that's the only place that this hope had traction, it might only be there that it could be found, but the amazing and surprising discovery for me, is that there is a reasonable and growing sense that they are right. This reasonable and growing sense that they are right is because it is based on values and characteristics that we as members of the faith community have commonly ascribed to God – sharing, collaboration, and egalitarianism.

I trust that I am not acceding to my own techno-utopian core, that I am able to create enough distance to let me examine these things with an appropriate level of critique. But I am not ready to let these surprising insights go, because they have the spark of the divine presence in them for me – enough proof for me of the surprise and unexpectedness that comes from God – enough connection with the kind of transformation that we need in this world to give them a chance and to continue to let them fill me with much needed hope.

Advent – a regular progression, an orderly walking of a path towards an expected revelation of God-with-us, Emmanuel, and a popcorn popping, fireworks exploding, sunlight bursting from behind a cloud experience of unexpected surprise. Let us make ready for the journey. Amen.