We celebrate Advent not so much as a precursor to Christmas, lost in the shuffle of the holidays, but as an invitation to the retelling of the greatest story ever told. It’s a prologue that sets the stage to begin again, to retell a story that’s new every morning.

It is God who binds us together—past, present and future—as his elect, in one communion, one fellowship in one Lord, Jesus. By his grace we follow in this glorious cloud of witnesses “in all virtuous and godly living” and in the end into “those ineffable joys” being prepared for those who truly love Jesus by him who truly loves us.