Luke 21:29-31

Then he told them a parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near.

We do not worship only in light of what God has done in the past. Our worship is always illuminated and shaped by what is to come, by what God has promised, by promises that find an echo with the ancient yearnings deep in our guts. This is always there in our worship, but in this season of Advent, God calls us to go more deeply into that experience, to listen to the hungers and hopes that well up within us and to stand on the tiptoes of our souls and crane our necks to peer over the horizon see if we can make out the source of the light that is drawing ever nearer. (Nathan Nettleton – laughingbird.net)