Advent 2025

The Season of Advent begins Sunday, Nov. 30, 2025.

An Introduction to Advent

by the Rt. Rev. Deon K. Johnson,
Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri

In this season of Advent, we are called to embrace the courage of hope. Not the kind that denies the darkness, but the kind that enters into it. God’s most profound works often unfold in obscurity—creation from chaos, resurrection from the tomb, the incarnation in the stillness of night. Advent does not rush to the joy of Christmas but lingers in the holy tension of waiting. It bids us to slow down, to notice where God is poking, provoking, and prodding us toward deeper relationship—with ourselves, with one another, and with the divine.

Advent is not just a countdown as we rush headlong towards Christmas; it is an invitation. It calls us to hold back the mad dash toward the manger and walk instead the slower, sacred path of preparation. Light a candle against the shadows. Read the prophets. Dwell in the questions. Sing the hymns of longing. Pray with the saints who waited before us.

For Jesus is coming—into our world, into our lives, into our gloom. And with him, he brings the fierce, transforming light of courageous hope.

May our anticipation of hope be holy. 

May our waiting be pregnant with possibility. 

May our expectation be buoyed in our longing.

For surely God dwells with us in this waiting place. 

The Season of Advent at St. Stephen’s and the Vine

by the Rev. Dr. Teresa Danieley,
Transitional Priest-in-Charge

As Bishop Deon notes in his Introduction to Advent, “Advent is not just a countdown as we rush headlong towards Christmas; it is an invitation.” During the season of Advent, I have specifically invited you to try a form of meditative Prayer and Bible Study called “Lectio Divina.” We will meet together in the Chapel, located downstairs, on three Saturday evenings in Advent to practice Lectio Divina. I suggest gathering at 4:45 p.m., so that we may settle ourselves and begin by 5 p.m. We will probably conclude by 5:45 p.m., 6 p.m. at the latest, depending on the size of the group. Lectio Divina is one way to slow down and prepare for Jesus coming into our world, our lives and our gloom – bringing what Bishop Deon calls “the fierce, transforming light of courageous hope.” 

This has been a difficult and gloomy season for many in our surrounding community – for children and adults without access to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance, for furloughed federal workers trying to make ends meet without pay checks, for machinists on strike at Boeing for many months – to name a few sources of difficulty. In this holy time of waiting, this Season of Advent, let’s give ourselves the gift of time. Time to be still, time to grieve, time to breathe and time to hope as we eagerly await the Christ Light returning to illumine the world.