Year: 2023

 part of a series of images for Advent

A beautiful Advent poem by Walter Brueggemann.
It is published in his book “Awed to Heaven, Rooted to Earth”

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 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 edge of our finger tips.

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.

 part of a series of images for Advent

A couple of times a week we will post an exercise known as Lectio Divina [go here to read more about this practice].

There are 4 basic steps:

• READ
• REFLECT
• REQUEST
• RESPOND

READ

Read or listen to the passage below slowly and carefully.
Identify a word or phrase that captures your attention or jumps out at you.

Luke 1:26-28
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name
was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary.
And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.”

REFLECT

Reflect on the passage using these questions.
What emotions surface for you as you reflect on the passage?
Read through this list and identify the emotions that resonate with you. This list isn’t exhaustive, so other emotions might come to mind.

Peace     Fulfillment     Excitement     Joy     Anger     Frustration     Discouragement     Disappointment     Confusion     Shame     Fear     Helplessness     Acceptance     Safety     Trust     Curiosity     Gratitude     Delight     Sorrow     Remorse     Hope     Surprise     Uncertainty     Grounded     Worry     Happiness     Anticipation     Contentment

How does the word or phrase you identified connect to the things you do in this season?
In what ways does the word or phrase you identified connect with something you hope for in this season?
During Advent, we focus on the hope, peace, love and joy that Jesus will come again to make all things new.
In what ways is the hope, peace, love and joy we have in Jesus good news for you today?

REQUEST

Spend a few minutes in prayer.
Give thanks to God for the wisdom found in the Scriptures.
Request understanding and guidance from the Spirit. Then, ask God to fill you with hope, peace, love and joy so that your hope in Jesus is evident to those with whom you work, go to school with, or interact with.

RESPOND

Respond to God by deciding on one specific attitude or action you’re going to adopt today, in your life, based on what you’ve discovered.

part of a series of images for Advent

Week 2 of Advent | PEACE

“STARRY NIGHT” by Vincent van Gogh

LOOK

• Look at the image below and let your eyes stay with the very first thing that you see. Keep your attention on that one part of the image that first catches your eye.
• Try to keep your eyes from wandering to other parts of the picture. Breathe deeply and let yourself gaze at that part of the image for a minute or so.
• Now, let your eyes gaze at the whole image. Take your time and look at every part of the photograph. See it all. Reflect on the image for a minute or so.

REFLECT

• Reflect on the image for a minute or so. Notice what thoughts or feelings surfaced for you as you looked carefully at the artwork.
• Where do you notice hope in this image?
• How might what’s stirring in you relate to some other themes or ideas you’ve encountered in the Lectio Divina this week?
• What do you think God might be inviting you to know, be, or do as we come to the end of this work week?

REQUEST

• Ask God for wisdom and insight as you continue to reflect on the image.

RESPOND

• Decide on one specific attitude or action you’re going to adopt today, in your work, in response to what you’ve experienced through this practice today.
• It maybe helpful to write down that action step.

part of a series of images for Advent

Many of us have become news junkies. And leads to a certain amount of doomscrolling… moving from one story to another, compiling a catalogue of the many reasons there are to be depressed: the war in Ukraine; the horrifying events in Israel and Gaza; the crisis in North American democracy; the latest foolish or frightening utterance by a public figure. Doomscrolling is a hard habit to break. Despair, whether personal or political, has a way of feeding on itself.

Which is one of the reasons we need Advent. The great texts of Advent: the testimony of John the Baptist; Isaiah’s glad tidings of Israel’s deliverance; Jesus’ apocalyptic discourse in Mark 13 — all of these summon us to abandon our doomscrolling in favour of a proper – of real Christian hope. Advent gives us permission to notice the darkness without giving in to it. Advent calls us to let our imaginations be shaped by our Lord Jesus Christ and his coming, rather than by the unending 24-hour news cycle.

Advent offers us the good news that this world and all that is wrong in it will be judged. Fleming Rutledge wrote that the “purpose of this seven-week season [her Advent includes the final three weeks of the Christian calendar] is to take an unflinching inventory of darkness.” Yes, er notice the darkness, and we remember that God is coming to judge this world of ours, to hold the evildoers of history accountable for their wicked deeds.

Evildoers?

That word rolls easily off our lips when it is applied to others, but Rutledge reminds us that a central theme of Advent is repentance. We are the ones whose lives will be laid bare by the judgment of Christ. Paul addresses the church in Thessalonica as “children of the light and children of the day.”

As children of the day, we stand first in line at the bar of judgment by repenting of our sins, the sins of the whole church and the sins of the whole world. We are involved in each other because God was first involved in us. “We love, because he first loved us.”[1 John 4:19]

As a teacher and pastor, I often say that there is no theological work in our day more important than that of being a Bible teacher, and no aspect of being a Bible teacher more important than loving God. Beyond any technical skills and resources, I remind us and I tell my students in Uganda and Ethiopia, that our “primary need” is to “be in love with God.”

One of the major themes of Advent is HOPE, but hope is empty apart from this primary need to LOVE. The hope we have in Christ is not just the expectation that something will occur, but the anticipation of the coming of a Someone.

One of my favourite Advent hymns is “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,” a paraphrase of the medieval “O” Antiphons set to the tune of a 15th-century French processional. These musical expressions give powerful voice to a longing for God, in the midst of the world’s darkness.

“We love because he first loved us.”

We love by loving the God who has first loved us.

We love by abandoning our hopeless doomscrolling, casting out fear in favour of the one who loves us and will set everything right.

We love by loving our neighbour, in the daily messes that is life in a world standing under the divine love and the divine promise of redemption.

We do not need our love to be perfect to begin.

Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

• Practice a breath prayer each time you receive a text message by breathing in and breathing out a 1–2-word prayer.
  For example: Breathe in “Jesus” and breathe out “with me.”
• Seek not to hurry others and say “I’m sorry” if you do.
• Look people in the eye every day this month so they know you see them, hear them, and value this. Look right at your roommate, coworker, children, spouse, barista, friends, and everyone you encounter.