Advent Words of Hope - Anticipation (Small Group Study)

Small Group Study, week commencing 7th December

Click here for a PDF version of these questions.

Icebreaker / Opener

1. How patient would you say you are on a scale of 1-10?

Why is waiting so hard?

The prologue in John’s gospel isn’t just about the birth of Jesus which Matthew and Luke record in detail with a sequence of events. We hear poetic language about not just his birth but the full meaning of everything he was and is and did.

Read John 1: 1-14

2. Did anything in particular stand out to you today as you read the passage?

3. Ellen picked out the theme of light as John references it, here in John 1:1-14

Reflect together on that metaphor and how it is used in common conversation

4. Have a look at all the verses where light is mentioned here - what themes come through?

Earlier this month, when the first promising signs from vaccine trials emerged, the Deputy Chief Medical Officer for England Jonathan Van-Tam said this:

‘This, to me, is like a train journey where you’re standing on the station – it’s wet, windy, it’s horrible – and two miles down the tracks, two lights appear and it’s the train. And it’s a long way off. We’re at that point at the moment.’

His point was that we are currently in darker times, but there is light coming. We are seeing the signs of hope and light to come with a covid-19 vaccine.

5. What are the similarities (and differences) here with what John is saying about Jesus?

6. How can we ‘bear witness to the light’ (v8) most effectively in these particularly dark times?

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