Advent - Light has come
Readings for this week November 25 - December 1
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Day 1 – The Coming of the Light
Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading – Isaiah 9:1
Advent. A time of preparation and anticipation. In the northern hemisphere it is dark, it is winter, the world is dim and full of shadows. It is natural to be aware of the world’s darkness, the fallenness of humanity and creation, and to be wholly aware of our need for light, hope, peace, and to long for the coming of the light, the coming of something to break the hold the darkness has on our lives. Something to change the world and offer relief from the struggle and the pain of our lives. For us in the southern hemisphere it is slightly different. Yes, we can still see the world’s pain and long for change. But we are in the midst of lengthening days, growing sunlight, the warmth of summer and the promise of holidays. The summer season puts us in the middle of the light that is promised; we are in the middle of the change of seasons, the light cast shows us already the effects of the coming of summer.
The light has dawned. Perhaps our position on the earth and our seasonal experience should make us more aware of the joy of the coming of the light, the coming of God’s promised saviour, the lifting of the darkness and the advent of light and peace and joy. Advent is a time to prepare for the coming of God and to look to hope and peace and salvation, embodied in God’s loving act towards us in Jesus. It is a time to remember that God moves, that God acts – that God is with us.
Question to Consider
How are you approaching Advent this year? What are the things weighing on your mind? How do you need God’s help to reorient yourself towards the coming of the light?
Prayer
Lord God, stir in me the memory of your light. Lift my eyes from whatever is dragging me down, reveal your hope anew, and show me how I can share the transforming light of Christ with the world this year. Amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)
Day 2 – The Silent Heavens
Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading – Isaiah 9:2-4
How many millions of people call upon the name of the Lord from the depths of despair, hunger and injury each day, asking him to come down and rescue them from the pain and fear that is their life at the moment? How many places in this world could you name right now where it seems that all hope and promise is gone, where life itself seems impossible? The Israelites knew such extremity. Verse 4 recalls the enslavement in Egypt (“yoke that burdens”, “rod of their oppressors”), and while they also knew deliverance, it now seemed like a distant memory erased by the darkness surrounding them.
The heavens seemed locked in silence for so long, the nation invaded and carried off into exile, the promises to Moses and Abraham and David now a distant memory. They longed for God himself to come down from the heavens, to come among them in person and rescue them from their sorrows. Throughout the ages people of faith have cried out for the Lord God to come down and tend to the wounds of creation with his saving, healing power. Like them, we also long for God. Like them, we know that hope ultimately lies beyond us. But unlike them, we are alive after the time when God finally did make an in-person appearance. We know the truth of God’s love for this world, we know the answer to the world’s cry and that is the joyful hope that we share with the world.
Question to Consider
What do you do when God seems silent? How do we maintain fidelity or closeness to his voice when it is hard to hear?
Prayer
Heavenly Father, we know you are always with us even when we strain to see and hear you. Strengthen us so that we never hesitate to do your work in this world, for the sake of the poor and the lost and the broken. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)
Day 3 – Promises Fulfilled
Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading – Isaiah 9:5-6
This poem is full of royal and Davidic themes echoing the royal psalms, but there is a difference between Isaiah’s poem and the psalms used as actual coronation songs when Judah crowned her kings. Isaiah directly links Messiahship with the king, and explicitly links both to the birth of a child. There is nothing theoretical about God’s promises; this is not a description of what Israel hoped the Messiah would be like, not a list of the (always disappointed) dreams they had for rescue and righteous rule. Psalm 2:7 had talked of sonship (“You are my son; today I have become your Father”), yet this was always wishful thinking when applied to the kings in Jerusalem. But now, says Isaiah, there will be a child, a king, who is actually divine, who embodies everything promised about God’s anointed one. It is happening. He is coming. The Good News has come.
This is a hope and promise made real, embodied in a child who would become the Messianic deliverer of his people. The emphasis isn’t on ‘to us’ (still important) but on the fact of his coming. All that will result from the coming of God’s anointed king is at once secure. That the king has come guarantees all that will follow, all that he will do. That is why Isaiah’s emphasis is not on all the things that the king will do, but simply on the fact that the king is coming. No list of specific mighty deeds is given; instead, we are told who the king is and what he is like, the names that foreshadow events to come and that embody the word of the Lord.
Question to Consider
How is the Messiah different? How did Jesus embody the promises made to the Israelites? Why was it important that the coming king be born?
Prayer
Holy Lord, thank you for coming to us, staying with us - being one of us. You are not a distant aloof God who does not care but one who dwells with his people and takes on the very life that you have given us. Amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)
Day 4 – All the Work of God
Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading – Isaiah 9:7
Jesus had profound trust in God, a trust that did not even end in death. All human hope can only be seen clearly and truly from this eternal perspective. All things find their end and their meaning in him, the one for whom and through whom all things were created. Salvation and rescue are only from God, and it is through the way and the work of Jesus Christ that this is made available to us. All human plans, all human designs and hopes and programmes for reform, for a better life, for a better world - however good and important they may be – are all of penultimate significance. For many, attempting to create ‘heaven on earth’ seems more urgent than ever. But the Christmas message shows us that any possible earthly transformation begins with God and his actions in a baby born to a poor Jewish family. It starts with God.
The Christian message that greets us through the advent of the Messiah is not one that depends on programmes or structures; it is not a political message that promises the final fulfilment of all human endeavour now that the Messiah is here to make all our efforts bigger and better and give us what we’ve always wanted. If it has a political message it is that the infant lying in the manger came warning of the destruction of human society through violence and oppression, and that the real task of the people of God is to announce God’s salvation for all people to all people and to stand in the gap on behalf of the forgotten and ignored.
Question to Consider
What happens when we try and force God’s hand? What happens when we leave God’s action through the baby in the manger behind?
Prayer
Gracious God, forgive us our hubris when we think we know better, when we think we can do it all without you. Give us humility to rely on you and obedience to follow where you lead. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)
Day 5 – As Was Foretold
Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading – Matthew 4:12-17
Jesus was the fulfilment of God’s promised hope. He may have been born in a small, nondescript village and grown up in an out-of-the-way part of his home country, and while he may have struck many of his contemporaries as ‘coming out of the blue’, his advent was not unheralded. He was the promised Messiah, the one the prophets had spoken of, the king who would rescue his people and, even beyond that, restore the way for all of creation to return to his Father’s embrace. Not an accident; not beneficial happenstance; not a fluke. Jesus was the incarnation of a God who wanted his creation back and wasn’t afraid to become one of us and come to us to do it.
Throughout the first four chapters of his gospel, Matthew has repeatedly referred back to the words of the prophets to show how the coming of God to his people was foretold, and how in the birth of Jesus those promises were being fulfilled. God said he would come to us and be with us. The prophets reiterated this message and Matthew, like the other gospel writers and other writers of the literature of the New Testament, continually tied the coming of Jesus – his entire life, ministry, death and resurrection – back to the promises contained in the Hebrew bible. This illustrates the unity of God’s purpose throughout history, the continuity of Jesus with Israel’s story, and the identification – through the incarnation – of Jesus with the God of all creation.
Question to Consider
Why was it important for Matthew to emphasise Jesus’ continuity with Israel? What happens if we lose or ignore this thread?
Prayer
Loving Father, thank you for your faithfulness to your creation. Thank you for your consistency and permanence in the face of our intransigent fickleness and wavering faithfulness. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)