Advent devotionals CCINOH 2020

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Micah 3:1-2, 5; 4:1-2; 5:2; 6:8

Micah is an under-appreciated prophet of Advent.

Isaiah and Amos would have known of Micah's message as contemporaries, and Jeremiah speaks approvingly of him from the generation just after him. One thing we get from Micah's preaching is that there were obviously other prophets speaking in his era, and that they were speaking a word more congenial to what the kings and princes wanted to hear, whose "prophetic" word was comforting to those in power, even in support of those who oppressed the people.

And I said:

Listen, you heads of Jacob

    and rulers of the house of Israel!

Should you not know justice?—

    you who hate the good and love the evil…

A prophet who loves evil is hard to imagine . . . or maybe not. But Micah warned God's people against such speaking. And had harsh words for those who said such preaching was what the Lord Most High had to say to those in lowly estate.

Thus says the Lord concerning the prophets

    who lead my people astray,

who cry "Peace"

    when they have something to eat,

but declare war against those

    who put nothing into their mouths.

Yet Micah did offer hope, even if that hope was not in those who had authority and power during that particular period.

In days to come

    the mountain of the Lord's house

shall be established as the highest of the mountains,

    and shall be raised up above the hills.

Peoples shall stream to it,

    and many nations shall come and say:

"Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,

    to the house of the God of Jacob;

that he may teach us his ways

    and that we may walk in his paths."

For out of Zion shall go forth instruction,

    and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

Micah's word on behalf of God's Word was that yes, the land of Judah could be a place where divine favor was found, where heavenly purposes would be fulfilled. But it might not be out of the center, the capital, the palaces of Jerusalem from which such leadership would come:

But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah,

    who are one of the little clans of Judah,

from you shall come forth for me

    one who is to rule in Israel,

whose origin is from of old,

    from ancient days.

And to live prophetically? Micah may have summed up in one verse better than any other prophet God's intention for us: 

He has told you, O mortal, what is good;

    and what does the Lord require of you

but to do justice, and to love kindness,

    and to walk humbly with your God?

In that three-fold command is a map for Advent, now and always, walking towards hope which endures. "To do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with our God."

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Revelation 21:3-4

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,

"See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them; 

he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away."

Every year, no matter your own personal situation, each of us has a store of memories, many delightful and always a few awkward and painful ones, about what Christmas has been before in our lives.  We also all know and anticipate how this year's observance will be different. 

"Empty chairs around the table" has usually been just a metaphor, since we rarely leave a chair empty, but in many homes a standard table will simply not have enough people physically present to fill them. So for many of us, for the first time perhaps, we literally will have empty chairs at the table.

The illnesses that are active right now — and there are always people dealing with sickness in this season who find the juxtaposition challenging, even before the virus came into our lives, cancer patients and people recovering from surgery needing special seating and the overall impact of age and infirmity — bring a weight of circumstance into the situation which can threaten to drag the whole celebration right down to the ground. I pray that we don't let that happen. Again, having a person or two ailing at the holidays isn't actually unusual, it's just that we all do, this year. We all have to deal with a different sort of celebration, and that general adjustment is a way of dealing with it, knowing that we are none of us alone in having a strange Advent.

Planning and preparation for Christmas has always been part of the Advent season, however we mark this penitential period. But this year, we all will be feeling the prayerful and preparations part of Advent in a more Lenten fashion than we normally do. We are all giving something up for Advent in 2020, which is in fact not all bad. Just as sacrifice and discipline is a standard part of Lent, it's supposed to be in part why we have an Advent season, so Christmas like Easter is a joyful feast we prepare our hearts and minds to observe in all the depth and breadth and expansiveness that those joyful culminations deserve.

May our Advent, with what we will lose and leave and set aside, be part of tuning our affections and focusing our love towards the gifts of God meant for our lasting blessing. Not towards the gifts or meals or events, but into relationships and memories that endure, and how our freshly understood valuations in this life turn us towards eternal values that can change what we do next, how we advocate and prioritize and work for the values of Jesus in the community and world around us.

Prayer: God of grace and God of glory, in our humble moments and sorrowful passages, help us to be more understanding of those in pain around us, to appreciate the losses others have known, and to see this world's tears and mourning with compassion and appreciation. May we learn from our losses, and be empowered in our Christmas understandings to build up and support those who live in loss every day, to care for the abandoned and lost, and to share Good News out of heaven that changes the news people hear in their neighborhood to hope and help. Amen.

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Psalm 90: 1, 4, 10

Lord, you have been our dwelling place
    in all generations.

For a thousand years in your sight
    are like yesterday when it is past,
    or like a watch in the night.

The days of our life are seventy years,

    or perhaps eighty, if we are strong;

even then their span is only toil and trouble;

    they are soon gone, and we fly away.

Advent's usual translation from the Latin of "To come" can also be interpreted as "to wait." We all know what it means to be waiting for a departure. In an airport terminal or just marking time in a living room before the time comes to take off, to drive away, there's a certain sort of waiting involved, sometimes wishing time would go more slowly, other circumstances wishing it would speed up.

Most of us have also known those long and complicated farewells in the doorway, on the porch, and even onto the driveway that go on and on, right down to the waving in the rear-view mirror. "Well, good bye! Okay, so it's time we're going, good bye . . . oh, and . . ." Good byes can take a while.

There are also those times of waiting for a good bye which go far beyond words. So many of us have known them, and none of us are "good at" such times of waiting. In a hospital or nursing home or even a curtained bay of an emergency department: waiting for a life to end. The doctor and chaplain and staff have all said their piece, but the figure on the bed is hanging on, and the digital readouts tell their own declining story of already but not yet.

So we wait. Waiting for . . . no. Not that, really. Or do we? We wait for an end to the waiting, which necessarily means an end we do not welcome, but the waiting itself starts to build into an intolerable pressure for expecting something to come, a passage, a moment, and yes, an ending that tells us what to do next.

That sort of waiting is beyond words, because nothing more can be said, yet there's always conversations to be had, even as we are waiting. On a hospice floor, around a hospital bed in the living room of a home. Waiting, for something that is "to come," an Advent of an end that, in our prayers and hopes, an end that in faith and trust we believe is something more than an ending, so we wish it away even as we wait for it "to come," in that other, darker, but also deeper meaning of Advent.

Advent means there is pain and change and transformation coming. We want that passage, we seek the closeness to God and holy living that we trust is waiting on the other side of what we're waiting for, but there's a hesitation, even an anxiety wrapped up in it, too.

Waiting for something we know will come, must come, and is the inevitable, necessary next phase, a good bye and a departure, and yes, even a death — that's a kind of Advent, a waiting for what is to come, that is intertwined with what our Advent for Christmas is meant to be. The birth of Jesus into this world, the coming of the Christ into our lives, means a dying to self, a change in priorities, a leaving behind of certain elements of what's been normal until now. 

Coming to Jesus can be wrenching and transformational and yes, even a death in this life, to rise with Christ into newness of life, a passage into life eternal. Not just at the end of our earthly lives, but for a reality of God's Realm in our here and now — which can mean a sort of dying to much that's here and now, too.

And so we wait. In hope, in faith, but with our hearts in our throats, as we wait.

Prayer: Lord of us all, you give each of us certain opportunities, a specific span of days, and the chance to be part of your work here on earth as we all prepare for what you have in your mind for eternity. May we reflect your eternal values in our work and our waiting, as we wait with others in their trials, and work for the good of one another in all that we do, bringing joy to all who hear your Name. Amen.