With the lighting of our first candle last week, we took one big step through a door through which we cannot return.
Advent is sneaky that way.
As much as we anticipate the end of leftover Thanksgiving stuffing, we welcome the chance to break out the Christmas music and put lights on the house. Some of you even came to our very peaceful Wednesday night Eucharist. And then, with the reading of our Gospel lesson this morning, we fall into an alternate universe. We thought we were getting a kinder, gentler Advent. Instead, we get a screaming, wild-eyed prophet with a camel skin on his back and grasshopper guts in his teeth.