We find a practical and life-changing truth here. The psalmist wrote, “ADONAI, how countless are Your works! In wisdom You made them all” (Ps. 104:24). We were made with wisdom. This is important because most of us are critical of ourselves and others. How many times has someone made you feel worthless, stupid, or ugly? The world, the flesh, and the Enemy will try to speak these lies over you until you believe them. But if you believe these lies, you empower them and the father of lies who is the source of them. You are not a mistake or ugly or worthless, for God created you with wisdom. Let the light of God’s wisdom and understanding dispel the dark lies that deceive you and lead you into emotional, relational, and spiritual bondage. Knowledge
Life in a prison cell may well be compared to Advent; one waits, hopes, and does this, that, or the other- things that are of no real consequence- the door is shut, and can be opened only from the outside."
,Letters from Prison - November 21, 1943Dietrech Bonhoeffer
Advent Prayer
In our secret yearnings
we wait for your coming,
and in our grinding despair
we doubt that you will.
And in this privileged place
we are surrounded by witnesses who yearn more than do we
and by those who despair more deeply than do we.
Look upon your church and its pastors
in this season of hope
which runs so quickly to fatigue
and in this season of yearning
which becomes so easily quarrelsome.
Give us the grace and the impatience
to wait for your coming to the bottom of our toes,
to the edges of our fingertips.
We do not want our several worlds to end.
Come in your power
and come in your weakness
in any case
and make all things new.
Amen.
Walter Brueggemann, Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth: Prayers of Walter Brueggemann
While Jesus met ancient overarching human expectations related to deity, many Jews of the time held a different inconsistence expectation related to the Messiah. Many Jews who expected a *spiritual* savior and redeemer became Christ followers, but Jews who expected a temporal king and conqueror (who would save the nation of Israel and restore the Jewish kingdom) did not. Jesus met the expectations of those who sought eternal, spiritual truth.
The message of Advent doesn’t fit neatly into a sound-bite or vignette. It’s too complex, too deep, to compete with glitter and noise; and it’s a hard sell in a culture that would rather skip straight to the big finish. But Advent is too important to be forgotten, because it is this season that prepares us to encounter our Lord.
Kerry van der Vinne, Advent: Let Every Heart Prepare Him Room
As the world around us surges into a frenzied and festive December, let's take a step away from the party and ask the Holy Spirit to prepare our hearts for a deeper and truer celebration of Christmas — one that is not undermined by lamentation, but that is made more potent because of it.
Kerry van der Vinne, Advent: Let Every Heart Prepare Him Room
On this eve of Christmas, whether you feel yourself to be surrounded by earthly blessings or whether you feel your blessings to be few, set aside those thoughts and concerns long enough to remember what it is that we are celebrating: God’s loving plan to bring you home to himself, through the gift of Jesus Christ.
Kerry van der Vinne, Advent: Let Every Heart Prepare Him Room
With the arrival of Advent, Christians everywhere turn again towards the Savior. Advent marks the beginning of the celebration of His birth and His long-foretold ministry, atonement, death, resurrection and second coming. If Advent is an occasion when I re-turn my eyes to the Savior, then it is also an invitation to consider where my eyes—and my heart—have been in the meantime. Advent is the gentle nudge that invites me to remember that the truth most worth knowing is that Jesus Christ is the only way Home. It is also a gentle reminder that I ought to keep my eyes upon Him all year long.
Jean-Michel Hansen
For outlandish creatures like us, on our way to a heart, a brain, and courage, Bethlehem is not the end of our journey but only the beginning - not home but the place through which we must pass if ever we are to reach home at last.
Frederick Buechner, The Magnificent Defeat
No comments:
Post a Comment