Meditations for Advent Duke Divinity School 2018
Introduction W hen I was a three-year-old child, my mom went to the Holy Land for a month. My dad was trying to write his dissertation, and the last thing he needed was a three-year-old pestering him all day long. He soon discovered that I loved the Good Humor Man, whose truck arrived in our neighborhood around 3pm each day. So every day at noon, my dad would give me a quarter and tell me to sit on the front step and watch for the arrival of that glorious ice cream truck. He knew that I would sit patiently outside, waiting and watching. Clever way to get three hours of free babysitting every day. The patient waiting and watching of Advent is far more powerful and poignant because we are preparing ourselves to receive with awe the extraordinary gift of God made flesh in Jesus. Despite the despair, violence, and discouragement both in Bethlehem years ago and too often in our lives today, we are invited to wait in hope for the surprise of God s inbreaking love, much like a restless young child discovers the capacity to wait in delightful expectation day after day. Our hope in Christ, which we nurture especially during Advent, enables us to envision and embody afresh the joy of Christmas. The reflections that follow are designed to help you in your Advent preparation. May this season prepare all of us to behold with awe and wonder the glory of God revealed in the baby in the Bethlehem manger. L. Gregory Jones Dean of the Divinity School and Ruth W. and A. Morris Williams Jr. Distinguished Professor of Theology and Christian Ministry
1st Sunday of Advent December 2. 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13 T echnology allows us to experience arrivals very differently than in earlier times. Whether walking, riding, or flying, we can predict with remarkable accuracy our arrivals at our intended destinations. We can plan the time required for travel, be informed of delays and detours, monitor our progress, and communicate our estimated times of arrivals with impressive precision. Our ability to predict with precision is not shared with many in the world. Those who serve in the global south, for example, know how easily (and frequently) their travels can be delayed. Despite unanticipated difficulties and detours that can result in arriving behind anticipated times, travelers can find themselves greeted by people who have sung and prayed while awaiting the arrival of their expected guests. The hosts did not know the precise time, but they knew visitors were coming, and they waited expectantly. Uncertain about the condition of the church at Thessalonica, Paul dispatched Timothy to strengthen and encourage their faith. The positive report of their faith and love made Paul rejoice, thank God, and look forward to coming to them. Until the Lord made that possible, however, he prayed that they would have overflowing love, strengthened hearts, and holy lives. As Advent invites us to remember the coming of Jesus in flesh and the coming of Jesus into our hearts, may we anticipate and prepare for the coming of Jesus to complete what God began, with love for each other and everyone else, with strong hearts, and with living fully devoted to God s will for this world. David Emmanuel Goatley Research Professor of Theology and Black Church Studies; Director of Office of Black Church Studies
2nd Sunday of Advent December 9. Isaiah 40:5 & Luke 3:5 H ow often we yearn for God to touch our lives but on our terms. We have just the right job for God to do, the perfect place in our designs, like an additive to the world we think we understand. But God is not an additive. When God comes to us in any meaningful sense, strange things happen. The world we know and our image of ourselves all of this must be healed and transformed. God intervenes not to help us with our lives but to remake them. Surprisingly, the beginning of the gospel is not the birth of Jesus but of John the Baptist, who called Israel to prepare for their longed-for deliverance by repenting and seeking God s forgiveness. In the power of the Holy Spirit, Christian believers continue to prepare for the Lord s coming by striving to be pure and blameless in the Day of Christ (Philippians 1:10). To know God is to repent, to have our minds, hearts, and lives changed. It turns out that God has a job for us to do. We must become the people God created us to be. Happily, God not only commands our repentance but he also came among us to bring it about. God prepares us for his own presence by making us holy people. What is crooked must be made straight ; then all flesh will see the salvation of God (Isaiah 40:5; Luke 3:5). Christopher Beeley Jack and Barbara Bovender Professor of Theology, Anglican Studies, and Ministry; Director of the Anglican Episcopal House of Studies
3rd Sunday of Advent December 16. Luke 3:7-18 I met pastor Pastor Ajok in a hot, dusty refugee camp in Kenya where he and his community had languished for two decades. His sermon was urgent and demanding: Everyone has a job while we wait for Jesus to reveal his work in the world from the smallest child to the oldest adult, everyone has a part. Like many refugees around the world, Pastor Ajok waits in sure confidence of Jesus active participation in the unfolding of a hopeful future. But it is not a passive waiting. The fiery voice of John the Baptist brings a hard message. He too is urgent and demanding each of us must make ourselves ready for the in-breaking of God in the world. Yes! Lest we forget, this is what we are watching for. It is radical and bold and should spur us into eager anticipation of what God will do through Jesus Christ to bring hope into the world. It is an invitation to active waiting. We join John s audience in asking what should we do? John challenges us from youngest to oldest, from the layperson to those engaged in systems of power to embody a deep ethic of social responsibility. How will we align how we live in relation to others with the good news of the gospel? Even if we are facing fear, loss, or uncertainty, John s voice echoes loudly: give as you are able to care for the most vulnerable, practice compassion, and live in commitment to justice. M. Jan Holton Associate Professor of the Practice Of Pastoral Theology and Care
4th Sunday of Advent December 23. Psalm 80 A cursory reading of Proverbs seems to suggest the notion that, these are the rules of life, try them they work. Ecclesiastes and Job respond by saying, we did and they don t. The wisdom literature identifies for us an age-old question. What do you do when your experience of God doesn t match what you think you know about God? Have you been there? In Psalm 80, the community is overwhelmed by its situation. Despite their intimate awareness of how God relates to them as Shepherd, they are not experiencing God as such. One can hear the distress in their prayer to God. They desire an audience with God. They want to know how long? things will be the way they are. They petition God to let your face shine, that we may be saved. Many of us may be overwhelmed with the circumstances of life. The experiences of tragedies seem to be a recurring theme and part of the human condition. This Advent season reminds us again of hopeful possibilities for a better future. For it is the God who said, Let light shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ (2 Corinthians 4:6). This Advent season reminds us of the faithfulness of God because we can see Jesus. We are reminded we do have an audience with God. We are reminded that trouble won t last always. Hopeful possibilities remain because Christ has come! Patrick T. Smith Associate Research Professor of Theological Ethics and Bioethics
Christmas Eve December 24. Isaiah 9:2-7 W ho doesn t love this passage from Isaiah? It speaks of the light shining in the darkness, joy rather than mourning, liberation rather than oppression, peace rather than war. But if one reads what comes directly before and after, things are more complicated. The surrounding context emphasizes Israel s complete defeat by Assyria. These six verses are literally a beacon of light in a world of demoralizing darkness. This text is sandwiched between stories of devastation. By contrasting (in verse 1, just prior to our text) Assyria s annexation of the tribes of Naphtali and Zebulon with the promise of God s coming glory, Isaiah invokes a contrast between oppressive human regimes and God s peaceable kingdom. Isaiah invites God s people to live into an eschatological hope that defies their current political and social realities. The birth of Jesus into the dark times of our lives, our nation, and our world is not just some warm, fuzzy event that we celebrate by candlelight while singing Silent Night and then go peacefully into the night. It is a radical in-breaking of a piercing light that instantly illuminates all that is wrong in this world, unhesitatingly rebukes it, and untiringly manifests such a presence of God with us that we cannot continue with what is but must be transformed and spend the rest of our lives witnessing to this transformation. Any who truly see this Light revealed in the manger in Bethlehem will be converted in all that they are and do toward righteousness, justice, and peace. G. Sujin Pak Associate Professor of the History of Christianity; Vice Dean of Academic Affairs
Christmas Day December 25. Luke 2:1-20 O n Christmas Day 1914, in the first year of the Great War, German, French, and British troops spontaneously laid aside their weapons and crossed the trenches to exchange greetings and gifts with their enemies. Together, they buried their dead and sang Christmas carols. Some played football. The next day, the same men resumed fighting and killing. The Christmas Truce is still remembered as an emblem of the ordinary human desire for peace. But Christmas peace is still mercurial. It is here today, in a timeless moment of flickering candles, and gone tomorrow. How can we keep it? In one of his sermons on Luke s Nativity story, Martin Luther imagines the world as a great stage bathed in darkness. At its center, illumined by a single beam of light, lies the infant Christ. The preacher would give anything to prolong the moment, to help us see the stark difference between the brilliant child and the surrounding gloom. He wants us to keep hold of Christmas peace on the day after Christmas, and the day after that. He says, If it is true that the child was born of the virgin and is mine, then I must know and feel that there is nothing but laughter and joy in the heart of the Father.... And if this is true and it is the truth then let everything else go. And you and I, preoccupied with the cares of another age, are sorely tempted to do just that. For if it s true and it is then let everything else go. Richard Lischer James T. and Alice Mead Cleland Professor Emeritus of Preaching