Advent Devotional 2012

Transcription

1 Advent Devotional 2012 Here is my picture. It's the face of Moses and in his beard is a picture of the Israelites getting bread from heaven. Riley Young, Age 10

2 Advent Devotional 2012 Dear Church, The four Sundays prior to Christmas Day are a special time of anticipation and preparation for the coming incarnation of God among us. We remember the centuries of longing by God s people for the Messiah. We think about what it might have been like, living in a world that had yet to have God in flesh dwelling among us. We anticipate His second coming to reclaim us. This leads to a renewed awareness of our sin and a desire to remain faithfully watchful. His return is imminent. The devotionals included below are meant to be fodder for our meditation during this Advent season. The content will be connected to our Advent sermon series about Israel's wandering in the book of Numbers. Some personal stories, favorite poems, readings and prayers of mine I am hopeful they awaken latent stories, poems, readings and prayers of your own as you consider the struggles we face in a world longing for Light to come. Come Lord Jesus, come, Mike

3 The First Week of Advent The story of Numbers is Israel's story of wandering. Miraculously rescued from Egypt and not yet at home in a land that flows with milk and honey, Israel is in between. In between the stench of furnace-baked-brick-captivity and the sweet scent of sun-baked-grape-cluster-freedom. Israel is in between. Oppression behind and promise ahead. Israel is in between. The theological name for this place that is in between is r A;b dim midbar, often translated as wilderness or desert. I prefer the word desert. It's my preference because midbar isn't so much wild as it is barren. Midbar is markedly sterile. It's a vapid wasteland where the passing of time is swallowed-up by feet tromping endlessly onward towards that place called Eden. There is a common mantra among those in midbar where whirling dust from our tromping swirls: "Give me food! Give me a leader! Give me Eden!" The mantra emanating from midbar can take on a couple of different forms. One form is hope that comes up with sounds made out of need which is prayer. Another form is need lost in fear that replaces prayer which is imposition. The former is an Advent. The latter is a Departure. The former is the scent of sun-baked hope, Light dawning in a manger. The latter is the stench of furnace-baked-doubt, Darkness absorbing Light and reemitting as heat. Hell? Which mantra will emanate from our midbars during this season of Advent? Excerpt from The Land, by Walter Brueggemann The gospel is about the coming of the new age, the new kingdom, the new land. In that context there is no anxiety, no sorrow. There is only trust in the promise of a land of rest and joy. But surely such a gift is a scandal! A Prayer In my longing for food that feeds, come. In my longing for a leader that leads, come. In my longing for a home that is home, come.

4 The Second Week of Advent - Give me food! The rabble among them had a strong craving; and the Israelites also wept again, and said, If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we used to eat in Egypt for nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic; but now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at." (Numbers 11) A friend once told me that learning to eat healthy in America is a near impossibility. He went on to say that the body must learn to run on a different fuel, and that, Americans are addicted to the fuel they run on... Numbers tells us Israel had a strong craving for the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic of Egypt. Maybe they were addicted. I think they were. The word addiction holds a negative connotation. What's so bad about a vegetable and herb addiction? America could benefit from an addiction like that. Perhaps Israel's addiction only appears to be about food. Perhaps the real addiction belongs to the promise of food which is to truly, deeply feed. That's more than an Israelite addiction; that's an American addiction. Maybe it's a humanity addiction. That shirt, that job, that home, that sex, that life! And so we eat a lot. Fat and bludgeoned, we demand, "Give me food!" Still hungry. Starving. We look at the frail wafer and whimper, "That's all you got?" Which food will feed us in our midbars during this season of Advent? Excerpt from The Seven Storey Mountain, by Thomas Merton Presently the priest's voice was louder, saying the Pater Noster. Then, soon, the server was running through the Confiteor in a rapid murmur. That was for me. Father Morre turned around and made a big cross in absolution, and held up the little Host. "Behold the Lamb of God: behold Him Who taketh away the sins of the world." And my First Communion began to come towards me, down the steps. I was the only one at the altar rail. Heaven was entirely mine that Heaven in which sharing makes no division or diminution. But this solitariness was a kind of reminder of the singleness with which this Christ, hidden in the small Host, was giving Himself for me, and to me, and, with Himself, the entire Godhead and Trinity a great new increase of the power and grasp of their indwelling that had begun only a few minutes before at the font. I left the altar rail and went back to the pew where the others were kneeling like four shadows, four unrealities, and I hid my face in my hands. In the Temple of God that I had just become, the One Eternal and Pure Sacrifice was offered up to the God dwelling in me: the sacrifice of God to God, and me sacrificed together with God, incorporated in His Incarnation. Christ born in me, a new Bethlehem.

5 The Third Week of Advent - Give me a leader! While they were at Hazeroth, Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married (for he had indeed married a Cushite woman); and they said, Has the LORD spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us also? And the LORD heard it. (Numbers 12) "Moses married a Cushite woman. Moses killed a man. Moses stutters." "David lied to a priest. David committed adultery. David murdered." "That president... That boss... that pastor... that leader..." We have all uttered words like these. That's because we have all felt disappointment in our leaders. We have all known moral failures, character flaws and personality imperfections in those appointed to lead. Point a finger accuse; offer an alternative me. But the same problem proliferates! Which leader will we look to in our midbars during this season of Advent? Waiting Sometimes, by William Stafford Inside your hands when you clasp them while waiting a committee or appointment, you feel a warm little room, dark, where in its own quiet the truth is at home, recognizing itself. Your fingers nestle communion, forgiving each other, a lacing together of independent beings. They even forget which hand they belong to, and one of them volunteers to rest on the table. The arrival of the boss or whoever is chairing the meeting breaks up that little church; your fingers come out in the big room, while your hands wave hello from their warm part of the world. Scriptures For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. (Isaiah 53:2) Lift up your heads, O gates! and be lifted up, O ancient doors! that the King of glory may come in. (Psalm 24:7)

6 The Fourth Week of Advent - Give me Eden! At the end of forty days they returned from spying out the land. And they came to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the Israelites in the wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh; they brought back word to them and to all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land. And they told him, We came to the land to which you sent us; it flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. Yet the people who live in the land are strong, and the towns are fortified and very large; and besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there. The Amalekites live in the land of the Negeb; the Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live by the sea, and along the Jordan. (Numbers 13) Rolling down I-5 in the back of my dad's apple red pick-up on a blistering July afternoon I fantasized about five days of boys camp. Money for candy every day; pants rolled-up, whitenumb feet and a bucket full of salamanders; late night riddles, laughter and camaraderie. Eden. I couldn't wait to leave home to finally find home. I was thirteen. It was dark. It was late. My wet cheek stuck to the plastic bunk mattress. "Why did they spray my sleeping bag with that stink spray? Why did my counselors throw my bag out the door without even offering a blanket? What's wrong with them? What's wrong with me?" I couldn't wait to leave home to finally return home. I was still thirteen. We roll away from home with so much hope for finding home. Then, we roll away from home with so much hope for returning home. Home. It's a dominant longing in us all. As that Proverb so hauntingly puts it, "Hope deferred makes the heart sick." I think we are all sick sick for home. And so we roll. We roll and roll and roll and roll, from home to home to home to home, only, to find, we are never quite home. What home will we roll to in our midbars during this season of Advent? Across the Fields, by Hermann Hesse Across the sky, the clouds move, Across the fields, the wind, Across the fields the lost child Of my mother wanders. Across the street, leaves blow, Across the trees, birds cry Across the mountains, far away, My home must be. An Advent Prayer In my longing for food that feeds, come. In my longing for a leader that leads, come. In my longing for a home that is home, come.