The Season of Advent has a variety of meanings. Because of where it falls in the year, its easy to associate with preparing for Christmas. As the season progresses the readings reflect this theme. But the beginning of Advent always deals with Christ's second coming. When this topic comes up I can't help but think about rapture, pre-millennial dispensationalism, post-millennialism, a-millenialism, and all sorts of understandings. All of these concepts are designed by human beings, trying to make sense of very cryptic passages in Scripture, like the one we have for Advent 1 this year. "Then they will see `the Son of Man coming in clouds' with great power and glory. Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven (Mark 13:26-27 NRSV)." When I was a teenager many of my friends would speculate on the rapture, believing that at some point Jesus would return, and that all of the Christians w...

The Four Worlds: The four worlds is a mystical concept that describes what happens in-between God and us. They are never named outright, but the closest image we have for them in the Bible comes from Isaiah 43:7 "Everyone who is called by my name, and whom I have created for my glory, Whom I have formed, even whom I have made (NASB)." An important question to ask is, why all the repetitions? Why does God talk about being called, created, formed, and made? Isn't it enough just to say that God created us in God's image and let that be that? The reality in Scripture is that everything is there for a reason. Sometimes we need to dig very deeply to get to that reason. Mystics interpret this verse from Isaiah as a way of understanding four separate worlds - a world of Emanation (I called you), a world of Creation, a world of Formation, and a world of Making or Action. The Hebrew for these worlds is: Atzilut, Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyyah. As one ascends the four wor...