Out of the Blue – Advent at St. John’s
Out of the Blue
This year’s Advent theme – Out of the Blue – gathers our shared imagination around moments of surprise, occasions of awe, and instances of inspiration when we discover the astonishment of God’s work and God’s purposes. This is a worship series about upturned expectations, feeling off-guard, and unanticipated invitations. It invites us to consider what we know – and, more often, what we do not know – about what it means to follow God.
When it comes to God, surprise is a matter of perspective. Few of the characters in the gospels really knew or understood God’s trajectory, but they should have. The message was clearly telegraphed: God will save God’s people. Even if God’s choice of incarnation was surprising, it was still well within the character of God as attested by the ancient Hebrew prophets. God had been sending the messages for quite some time that things would happen just so, yet God still managed to surprise. Even Anna and Simeon, the witnesses in the temple, knew exactly who they sought, yet they still felt astonishment and joy when Jesus arrived in the arms of his parents.
This is the excitement and the tension we’ll experience in our worship this Advent in Out of the Blue: the sense that God’s work breaks into our reality in ways that astound even the best prepared. Follow along for our Advent journey every Sunday this season:
November 9: First Sunday of Advent – Beginning at Broken
November 16: Second Sunday of Advent – Days to Prepare, Seconds to Cook
November 23: Third Sunday of Advent (Christ the King) – Love at the Last
November 30: Fourth Sunday of Advent – Living in Holy Tension
December 7: Fifth Sunday of Advent – Wild New Life
December 14: Sixth Sunday of Advent – Beyond the Superbloom
December 21: Seventh Sunday of Advent – At the Turning Point (featuring “Out of the Blue: Six Surprising Tales from Jesus’ Family Tree,” an all-ages Christmas pageant)
(Adapted from Out of the Blue: Introduction © 2025 Barn Geese Worship. Used by permission.)
Seven-Week Advent
It’s true that Advent has traditionally been – and is still in many churches – four weeks. One week for each candle on the wreath, right? It’s also true that it hasn’t always been that way. In fact, the length of the Advent season has varied over the course of church history – from as few as three weeks to as long as three months. It wasn’t until the papacy of Gregory I in the late 6th/early 7th century that Advent was standardized as the four-week season most of us are familiar with today.
In recent years, The Advent Project, a seminar of the North American Academy of Liturgy, has emerged in favor of a seven-week observance and has gained popularity among Lutherans, Episcopalians, and others, by including the three weeks between All Saints Sunday and the “traditional” start of four-week Advent. The rationale is two-fold and considers both the secular and liturgical calendars.
On the secular calendar, owing in part to the rampant rise of commercialism in the retail industry, Christmas seems to come earlier and earlier each year. As soon as the last trick-or-treaters leave our porch on Halloween, if not before, Christmas decorations line the shelves of stores everywhere, and radio stations soon switch their format to 24/7 holiday music (whether we like it or not – so much for Thanksgiving). All of which leaves precious little time for Advent – a season of slowing down and waiting. An extended Advent gives us a chance to reclaim the season. While it might be Christmas at Crossgates by early November, in church it’s still Advent.
Liturgically, an extended Advent dovetails nicely with themes already present in the Sunday lectionary. After All Saints, November’s appointed readings are full of themes of the coming reign of Christ over all things (“eschatology,” to use a fancy seminary word) – all orienting us to not only the anticipated coming (“advent”) of the Christ Child at Christmas, but also to the second advent of Christ at the end of time (whatever that looks like).
And so: Welcome to Advent – all seven weeks of it – at St. John’s.
Faith Formation & Advent Spirituality
Devotions
Dive deeper into this year’s Advent theme Out of the Blue with weekly devotions from Barn Geese Worship (the creators behind Out of the Blue). The scripture stories selected emerge from the tradition of the Jesse tree, a medieval symbolic depiction of Jesus’ ancestry. It’s also a symbol of the Advent season, sometimes used for home devotions during the weeks leading to Christmas. This devotional booklet includes weekly entries beginning the week of November 9 for each Sunday of Advent, plus Christmas Day. Read more and download the devotional here. We’ll have a few printed copies available at church too.
For those who prefer a daily devotional, we’ve got you covered. Humble and Holy continues a centuries-old Christian tradition of setting aside time to prepare for the celebration of Jesus’ birth and to anticipate his return. The Advent season of preparation then unfolds in the joy of the twelve days of Christmas and the day of Epiphany. This devotional offers short daily devotions for the traditional First Sunday of Advent (November 30) through Epiphany (January 6). Pick up a copy at church where you normally get your Upper Room. eBook editions are also available here.
Bible Study
This Advent, we are again joining forces with Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Bellerose, NY, for a book and video-based study A Child Is Born: A Beginner’s Guide to Nativity Stories with Dr. Amy-Jill (“AJ”) Levine.
Discover the fascinating connections between ancient birth stories and the Nativity of Jesus in this captivating four-week study, as we delve into the narratives of Isaac and Ishmael, Moses, and Samuel to reveal how they foreshadow and enrich the timeless Christmas story. AJ brings her expert knowledge of Scripture and careful consideration of the Christian story to show readers how Scripture’s earlier birth stories anticipate the story of Jesus’s birth and how the birth resonates and gives new meaning to those earlier stories. Transform your Advent season with fresh insights and inspiration from A Child is Born.
Sessions will be held on Monday evenings at 7:00 p.m. via Zoom (stjohnsalbany.org/zoom or https://us06web.zoom.us/j/6870739105), beginning November 17 for four weeks. Purchase the participant book here: paperback or Kindle edition.
