The season of expectant anticipation and preparation culminates in Jesus’ long-awaited arrival. May this day feel like a genuine entrance of Messiah into your life, perhaps for the first time, perhaps for the hundredth. Regardless, may his grace and peace rule your realm today.
To cap off our waiting, enjoy a calming and creative re-telling of the season’s story.
[Darrell Buchanan is enjoying life as a Moose Javian and ministering with the Moose Jaw Church of Christ. He is a follower and a learner who is thankful for the patience and love extended to him by God, his wife, and his son. Darrell blogs irregularly at www.darrellbuchanan.ca.]
You will see a lot of expectant eyes in the next 24 hours or so. Of course, there will be the expectant eyes of children as they open their gifts after waiting for what has seemed like an eternity. There will also be the expectant eyes looking to the safe arrival home of loved ones. As well, there will be the expectant eyes which anticipate receiving a symbol of a lover’s life-time commitment.
There are also expectant eyes in today’s final reading for Advent (Luke 2:25-33). They are the eyes of Simeon who is described in a compact character reference as “righteous and devout” and “waiting for the consolation of Israel” (2:25). Simeon’s eyes are looking with hopeful expectation to the coming of God’s reign. He has been promised by way of revelation that he will not see death before he has seen the Lord’s Messiah (2:26).
We are not told how long Simeon has been waiting. But when the day finally comes, God, through the direction of the Holy Spirit, arranges for a temple court rendezvous between Simeon, the infant Jesus, and his parents. And once again in Luke’s account of the events surrounding the birth of Jesus, a song fills the air. Continue reading
[When Janelle was growing up, she never thought she'd be living in a house that features a set of deer antlers as a coat rack, or with an archery lane in her back yard. But she thanks God daily for the blessings of the four men who brought these new experiences into her life. And once in a while she writes about them at My Men and Me.]
This is not what I expected to write about. I expected to write about mothers and babies and waiting and birth. But “last days” and mountains and farm tools and war were not what I was expecting. And at first read, I’m hard pressed to understand this passage (Isaiah 2:1-5) in light of advent.
This is what Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem:
In the last days the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established as chief among the mountains; it will be raised above the hills, and all nations will stream to it. Many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.” The law will go out from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. Come, O house of Jacob, let us walk in the light of the Lord.
But I sit with the poetry for a while, and I wash my thoughts in the words of the prophet, and I see … something.
It’s a beautiful picture, really.
A picture of a people of peace. The kingdom of God, royal and raised up and so wonderful that everyone wants to be a part of it. They are running toward it like streams of flowing water, so intent and purposeful in their desire to join this movement that they are flowing up the mountain.
And this kingdom is not maintained by power or force, but by the King himself. His love is what keeps the peace. And the people, full of that love and united by that love, leave the wars and the dissension and the struggle behind, and they live as they were created to live. In justice and grace and harmony.
It sounds … heavenly.
And it began with a mother and a pregnancy and waiting and a birth.
[Lee Patmore has been the preaching minister for the Church of Christ in Lloydminster since 2007.]
In today’s reading of Matthew 4:14-16, Matthew does in this short little section what he has a habit of doing in his gospel. He pulls a text from the OT and offers it to us as evidence that Jesus is the fulfillment of the hopes of the nation. This is already his seventh reference to a prophetic oracle and we’re only in the fourth chapter.
Matthew is not proof texting; gathering bits and pieces of scripture without regard to their context and manipulating them to serve his agenda. The resurrected Jesus opened the minds of his disciples to understand the scriptures (Luke 24) and we’re privileged in this gospel to hear one of them seek to open our minds. Matthew writes to a Jewish audience and he expects his readers to be fluent in the prophetic literature of the OT. The context of this text fully supports his use of it.
If you and I were as familiar with Isaiah 9 as we are with Acts 2, we would hear more said in this little quote than is contained in the words themselves. The whole context of the words would be brought to our minds. In the previous two chapters in Isaiah, the people of God have come under his judgment brought upon them via the nation Assyria who then ruled the world. As testimony to the depth of Israel’s faithlessness, when the judgment comes they turn not to God but to the dust of the earth seeking to contact the dead for the answers to life. The nation of Isaiah’s day sits in darkness, a great spiritual darkness and all seems lost. That’s how Isaiah 8 ends; Matthew’s quote comes from the first few lines of chapter 9.
Israel in Jesus’ day too sits in darkness. Our text does not focus on the darkness among the pagans; it is Galilee who sits in darkness – the people of God. The nation designed to be the light of the world lives in the land of the shadow of death. Israel is at a great crossroads. God’s hand of rescue and discipline is upon them. To whom will they turn? Will they embrace the light or will they persist in darkness and find themselves under the judgment of God via the pagan empire of their day.
Isaiah 9 speaks profound words of encouragement. God has not abandoned his people to the darkness, a great light dawns. The enlightened Jewish reader would recognise that these few words which Matthew quotes are only the beginning of a great oracle of hope. Victory is pictured on the horizon as the scene unfolds. The words of the prophet remind his readers of the days of Gideon. And how will this victory arrive?
Isaiah 9:6-7 A child is born, the government would be on his shoulders, he will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom forever. (Matthew’s gospel will insist on these truths.) No wonder Matthew’s next move is to have us hear Jesus’ words, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.”
[Darrell Buchanan is enjoying life as a Moose Javian and ministering with the Moose Jaw Church of Christ. He is a follower and a learner who is thankful for the patience and love extended to him by God, his wife, and his son. Darrell blogs irregularly at www.darrellbuchanan.ca.]
Today’s reading (Luke 2:8-20) always takes me back to A Charlie Brown Christmas Special. It’s the scene where Linus tells Charlie Brown what Christmas is all about by reciting Luke 2:8-14 with its memorable opening sentence: “And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night” (KJV).
Shepherds actually frame today’s reading, being mentioned in 2:8 and 2:20. They and the angels are a unique Lukan contribution to the account of the birth of Jesus. Their stories come immediately after Jesus’ birth to show how the news is received with joy and praise. Continue reading
[Wade Grocott and his wife Richelle live in Moose Jaw, from where they set out on occasional surfing ventures in sweet sea spots around the globe.]
Today’s reading comes from Matthew 1:18-25:
18 This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. 19 Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
20 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus,because he will save his people from their sins.”
22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”).
24 When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. 25 But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.
Does the sequence of events strike you as odd?
- Mary becomes pregnant
-Joseph must decide what to do with her
- He makes a decision to divorce her quietly
– THEN an angel comes and explains a few things
[Jason Bandura works with the Glen Elm Church of Christ and hopes to increase the attention he gives to Advent in this, his second year of observing the season. Anything that rescues meaning from the madness of Christmas for him and his family--wife Shannon and two sweet daughters--has his attention!]
Surely, on the list of “Bible books least read”, Zephaniah has to be one of the top contenders. Even long-time church-goers would be hard-pressed to quote (or even paraphrase) a single verse from this prophet’s account.
Today, we change that with Zephaniah 3:17:
17 For the Lord your God is living among you. He is a mighty savior. He will take delight in you with gladness. With his love, he will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.
Some key images of God are put forth here, but they are hardly new.
Somehow most of these are easily grasped by most of us. Despite the logical challenges of understanding a Being so unlike us, we appear to possess sufficient flexibility and acceptance within mind and spirit to accept a God who is here as a mighty hero, willing to rescue those in need. We seem especially adept at grabbing these truths in relation to other people’s lives.
But Zephaniah hasn’t finished.
These are unusually warm and affectionate phrases. These are gentle-father-with-small-sweet-children phrases.
[Blair Roberts, husband to Melissa and father to Makena and Bella, is the Youth Minister at Glen Elm.]
Consider the first portion of today’s reading:
Isaiah 11:1-10
1 A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.
2 The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him—
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of might,
the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the LORD—
3 and he will delight in the fear of the LORD.
He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes,
or decide by what he hears with his ears;
4 but with righteousness he will judge the needy,
with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.
He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth;
with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.
5 Righteousness will be his belt
and faithfulness the sash around his waist.
This is a new kind of King. One different than any we’ve ever known. One I am anxiously awaiting.
I both love and hate politics. I love it because they stir a passion in me to strive for a better world
through social change. I hate them because the people who run our world are often controlled by
special interests and the whole process comes across as insincere. Handshakes and smiles for the
camera. Song and dance routine. If that sounds skeptical, it’s because I am. What I once put my faith
in to be the hope for a better future, I now see as choosing between the better of two evils to get us
through the next 4 years. This sounds harsh, and while I don’t mean to demean those who run for
office, as I do believe the vast majority to have pure motives, it is difficult to not get jaded as you
watch the 24 hour news networks and the debacle that seems to be the worlds stage.
