I am a 44-year United Methodist clergyperson, and in the denomination our national and international anthem is "Amazing Grace," a hymn we all adore and sing with gusto at the drop of a collection plate! I, however, believe that what we really believe is not in this amazing grace of God, but in the works we all must perform to earn that grace. Why do so many of our sermons end with "go, thou, and do" something? It is because we do not trust the power of God's grace, God's comfort to urge us, to lure us to the deeds God has called us to do.
Is that not the very theme of Advent? God comforts us in order that we may at long last become what God wanted us to be from the beginning, namely God's children, God's agents in the world, empowered by a love that will not let us go. Accept the comfort of this God, luxuriate in it, put it on like your finest coat, and then go out and be God's child in a world eager to return home.
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