Advent

Jan 13 2025

Seeing Differently, through God’s Eyes

When I was in forestry school in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, I recall skiing one winter morning through a birch grove as the sun rose. The white birch bark glowed pink in the snow, reflecting the sunrise. Around me, trees had fallen, some had been chopped up for firewood. Yet each of the ancient trees had stump sprouts rising from its base. (That is the nature of birch trees.) In three years, young trees had grown fifteen feet. How so tall? They didn’t have to start from scratch; the saplings were fed by the root systems of the older trees.

Our Christian faith is like a stump sprout that rises from our Jewish roots. We share a common vision: that peace will reign and justice will thrive. Isaiah envisions a king who will make creation flourish in solidarity: even a cobra will be so tame that a baby can handle it. Together we are rooted in God’s vision, a hope for a more glowing future.

At the same time, John the Baptist bursts in wielding an axe with rough words for the Pharisees—repent! Cut down every tree that does not bear good fruit! Yet he too sees a radiant vision: One who is coming after him who will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire!

We are rooted in God’s vision of what can be. The courage of Advent is this faith in the future. We await Christmas. We await eternity. Earthly life will be cut down and pass away, yet we live on the brink of a blessed and infinite future. That mode of seeing can fill the way that we live our lives today. Like the fiery glow in the birch forest, as people of Advent we live within the sunrise of a new day.

Consider/Discuss

Isaiah tells us that a shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse. None of us start from scratch either. Our faith is rooted in the faith of those who have gone before us. Our faith is now supported by those who travel with us. We hope that our faith will bear fruit in those who arise from our roots. What do each of those roots look like—past, present, and future?
In this season of preparation for the coming of Jesus, as God sees into our hearts, what is one thing that we could chop off or prune in order to bear stronger fruit?

Living and Praying with the Word

God of the future, thank you for your vision. Open our eyes to see you as you surround and enfold us on this journey. Help us to see this sunrise in which we live. We want to walk with you more robustly. We give ourselves to you this day, for you are the source of our hope. Fill us with the fullness of your peace forever. Thank you and thank you again for your goodness to us.

Jan 13 2025

Scripture Study for

Israelite kings were to act as God’s representatives, ensuring justice by ruling wisely and fairly; they often failed in this regard. In Isaiah’s vision, God raises up an ideal Davidic king who will perfectly reflect the rule of the God he represents. Endowed with divine gifts, the king will bring down the “ruthless” and the “wicked” through right judgment (“the rod of his mouth”). Further, he will usher in an era in which all creaturely violence will end. “Natural enemies” will belong to the “peaceable kingdom” brought about by the royal icon of God. Such will be the magnificence and beneficence of the kingdom that other nations will be drawn to it.

Paul reminds his Roman readers that the story of Israel, in which the promises to the ancestors were fulfilled first in ancient times and then more completely in Christ, gives evidence of God’s trustworthiness. One aspect of those promises was that all the families of the earth would find blessing through Abraham’s descendants (Genesis 12:3). Thus, the fulfillment of those promises also included the extension of God’s mercy not just to Israel but ultimately, in Jesus Christ, to all the nations. God wishes to gather all peoples together in Christ—a divine intention that encourages the Romans to seek unity among themselves.

John the Baptist’s message of repentance (metanoia, change of mind and direction) draws large crowds, who are preparing for the coming of God’s kingdom. This kingdom is understood eschatologically, as a time of consummation and judgment. Foreshadowing what is to come, John has harsh words for the religious leaders, who do not possess a repentant disposition. Anticipating a claim that they have no need of repentance to prepare themselves, John assures them that God is sending One who will see, not one’s birth status, but one’s heart, and will judge accordingly, baptizing in fire and the Holy Spirit, which is to say, with the power and wisdom of God. John’s message highlights that this is a moment of decision for everyone.

Jan 13 2025

Visions and Prophecies

Last year I went to a Christmas concert to help get myself into the Christmas spirit. The concert was moving along at a comfortable and comforting pace, enjoy able but nothing out of the ordinary, when suddenly the choir came out and sang a piece that moved me to tears. I searched the program and found its name and composer: The Dream Isaiah Saw by Glenn Rudolph. I went home and found it online, a youth choir performing it.

Its refrain brought together the passage of Isaiah we heard today and the event that we will celebrate in a few weeks. It does this very simply with several variations for the final line: “Little child whose bed is straw, take new lodgings in my heart, Bring the dream Isaiah saw: a) life redeemed from fang and claw; b) justice purifying law; c) knowledge, wisdom, worship, awe.”

Advent is a season that sets before us visionaries and prophets like Isaiah, the missionary Paul, and the herald John. Each offers us a vision of things coming together. For Isaiah, it is all creation—animal and human; for Paul, it is Jews and Gentiles; for John, it is the One who is coming to gather the wheat into his barn, God’s harvest, those baptized in the Spirit.

We are brought together each Sunday to think, live, and sing in harmony to the gracious God who has come to us in Jesus Christ, the One who came filled with the spirit of the Lord, to draw us more deeply into the life so generously offered by God.

Consider/Discuss

Does the dream of Isaiah with its pairing of opposites offer hope in our own day, when there is so much division in the world, in government, and even in the Church?
What would arouse John the Baptist’s wrath today? What in our lives can be considered as worthy wheat and as chaff to be swept up and tossed into the fire?

Responding to the Word

We pray this season that we may come to “think in harmony with one another, in keeping with Christ Jesus, that with one accord [we] may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 15:5–6).

Jan 07 2025

God Takes Us In; We Belong to God

We humans hunger to belong. As a result, tracing one’s genealogy has become very popular. Ancestry.com has three million members. People upload family histories and search for connections. Studies of

young people reveal that they are more passionate about where they belong than about what they believe.

Belonging was important for Jesus as well. The angel said to Joseph, “Do not be afraid to take Mary into your home.” Joseph could have quietly thrown her out. Instead, the just man from Nazareth took her in. He offered the young pregnant Mary a roof over her head and a family lineage. He provided her a place and a people. Thus Jesus, adopted as his son under the Law of Israel, became a descendant of Joseph’s “house of David.”

Having a land and a people was important to the Hebrews. These things are important to us as well. Yet many people in this world are uprooted. Refugees and immigrants have no country, no place of belonging. Children who are passed from foster home to foster home do not know that security of belonging. They live on the edge of place.

We belong in this world, but at the same time, we don’t belong. As an Advent people, we acknowledge that we are pilgrims on this earth. We too live on the edge of place. St. Paul says that we are called to belong to Jesus Christ. We don’t abandon our family and our heritage, but we acknowledge that all that is, is God’s. God is our home. God is our Source and our Goal. The Lord does not throw us out, but has taken us in and fully adopted us. God has given us a place to belong.

Consider/Discuss

We wonder, “Where do I belong?” and “To whom do I belong?” As we come close to Christmas, think about the joys that God has given you in belonging, especially those you may take for granted. Think about the ache of not belonging as well. What can we do today to strengthen those bonds?
On this Sunday, three days before Christmas, how we spend our money, our time, and our energy reveals much about to what we belong. Where and how are we invested?

Living and Praying with the Word

O come, Emmanuel, God-with-us; come into our hearts, hear the sound of our cry. The tensions of Christmas are intensifying. We need to rest in you. We need a place to belong. Like Joseph, take us into your home. We are searching not for a God of distance but the God of presence. When we need it most, hold us in your loving arms.

Jan 07 2025

Scripture Study for

Isaiah understood that the “house of David” was protected by God, according to God’s promise to David (2 Samuel 7:11–16). King Ahaz, threatened by surrounding states seeking to depose him, contemplates turning to the Assyrian Empire for help, an act reflecting a lack of faith in God’s protection. Not wishing not be dissuaded from his political course, the king “piously” declines God’s offer of a sign of his continued support of the Davidic monarchy. Nevertheless, the prophet points to a sign, which is a “young woman” (in Hebrew; “virgin” in the Greek translation) who is pregnant (future tense in the Greek). The son to be born will inherit the throne of David, making him a sign of fidelity to God’s promise.

Paul begins his letter to the Romans by setting out the core of his message about Christ Jesus, which is the good news, earlier announced in Israel’s scriptures, that God has sent a descendant of David and confirmed him as Messiah and Lord by raising him from the dead. Paul himself is a “slave” of Christ—not degraded chattel but an apostle of the gospel to the Gentiles, a role he has been given by God that they too may belong to Christ through the “obedience of faith.” This phrase refers to the summons to acknowledge Jesus’ lordship and so enter into covenant relationship with God by “belonging to Christ.”

The Matthean annunciation focuses on Joseph, a “son of David.” The child to born will come from the house of David, as most expected the Messiah would. An adopted child was as much a child of the adoptive parents as any biological child. So, Joseph, the adoptive father, could be considered the “real” (human) father of Jesus. Jesus’ descent from David is not “apparent” but, according to Jewish cultural norms, actual. Two names point toward his identity. Jesus (in Aramaic Yeshua) means “He will save,” while “Emmanuel” indicates that he will be both the sign and the reality of God’s presence to Israel.