Date: November 25, 2024
As we enter Thanksgiving week, I am anticipating the Seminary closure days – from Wednesday lunchtime to Monday – and the fact that the Seminary will reopen on Monday December 2. It is a little strange. With Thanksgiving being so late, we find ourselves ready to open our Advent calendars and start the journey to prepare for the arrival of the Christ child the moment we return from Thanksgiving. The theme of Advent is important. It is the season when we recognize that we stand between the two comings of Christ. In the first, two thousand years ago, we have the Eternal Word made flesh revealing to us the nature of the God we worship and the demands that God makes of us. In the second, the return of Christ that we anticipate in this season, we recognize that God’s promise of a world of justice and love will be made a reality. As we live through this season, we learn afresh that we need to do everything we can to move us towards the world that God will usher in the second coming of Christ.
We live in turbulent times. We anticipate the challenges of 2025. The Advent message is perhaps more important today than it has been for many years. A blessed Advent everyone. Please roll up your sleeves and prepare to do the work that God has called us all to do.
The Very Rev. Ian S. Markham, Ph.D.
Dean and President of Virginia Theological Seminary and the President of The General Theological Seminary