Advent Devotionals 2022

Advent Season

Week 1: Hope

Week 2: Faith

Week 3: Joy

Week 4: Love

Christmas Day: The Christ

Week 1: Hope (Participation & Preparation)

<Centering Prayer>

Prayer: Lord, for thousands of years people have hoped for you to come. Then you did. You came to earth as a vulnerable and poor baby, like us. Now, we hope for your return everyday…and you do return right here in our world. Teach us to hope in ways that help others see you are right here, right now, ready to make us new again.

Scripture:

Isaiah 2:1-5 “The vision that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem: In the last days the mountain of the Lord’s house will be established at the top of the mountains and will be raised above the hills. All nations will stream to it, and many peoples will come and say, “Come, let’s go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us about his ways so that we may walk in his paths.” For instruction will go out of Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He will settle disputes among the nations and provide arbitration for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plows and their spears into pruning knives. Nation will not take up the sword against nation, and they will never again train for war. House of Jacob, come and let’s walk in the Lord’s light.”

Psalms 122 “A song of ascents. Of David. I rejoiced with those who said to me, “Let’s go to the house of the Lord.” Our feet were standing within your gates, Jerusalem— Jerusalem, built as a city should be, solidly united, where the tribes, the Lord’s tribes, go up to give thanks to the name of the Lord. (This is an ordinance for Israel.) There, thrones for judgment are placed, thrones of the house of David. Pray for the well-being of Jerusalem: “May those who love you be secure; may there be peace within your walls, security within your fortresses.” Because of my brothers and friends, I will say, “May peace be in you.” Because of the house of the Lord our God, I will pursue your prosperity.”

Matthew 24:36–44 CSB

“Now concerning that day and hour no one knows—neither the angels of heaven nor the Son—except the Father alone. As the days of Noah were, so the coming of the Son of Man will be. For in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah boarded the ark. They didn’t know until the flood came and swept them all away. This is the way the coming of the Son of Man will be. Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left. Two women will be grinding grain with a hand mill; one will be taken and one left. Therefore be alert, since you don’t know what day your Lord is coming. But know this: If the homeowner had known what time the thief was coming, he would have stayed alert and not let his house be broken into. This is why you are also to be ready, because the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

Reflection:

Hoping does not mean doing nothing. It is the opposite of desperate and panicky manipulations, of scurrying and worrying. And hoping is not dreaming. It is not spinning an illusion or fantasy to protect us from our boredom or our pain. It means a confident, alert expectation that God will do what He said He will do. It is imagination put in the harness of faith. It is a willingness to let God do it His way and in His time.”

Eugene Peterson

(Eugene H. Peterson . A Long Obedience in the Same Direction:Discipleship in an Instant Society. InterVarsity Press, 2000, p.144.)

When I grew up hoping was more about waiting for Jesus to come back to make the world right again. He would come and instantaneously stop all the evil in the world and reward all the Christians. While I still confess that Christ has risen and Christ will return one day, I now also realize that when Jesus said “the kingdom of God is near you” he was saying that those who see it can have it now!

That changes the way we hope. Now our hope is more participation and preparation everyday. We are in preparation when we allow the Holy Spirit to gently form us into the godly human we were created to become. Then we actively participate in the mystery of the presence of Jesus everywhere.

Another simple word for all of that is Prayer. Prayer is not just words we say. Prayer is the hopeful participation in what God is already doing, has already done, in the world. So, at the start of Advent we pray with hopeful anticipation. We choose to see, show, and live the presence of Jesus in ways that make the promise of his kingdom a reality more and more, day by day, conversation by conversation, through every loving action guided by the spirit of God.

Week 2: Peace (Anticipation & Action)

<Centering Prayer>

Prayer: Lord, we believe in your promises and in your promised return. We pray like the man who’s daughter was dying, “Lord help our unbelief.” You have created us to be a people of faith, which means we are a people of action. Our faith is not a badge we wear. Faith is an attitude of the heart that knows something our eyes and our mind do not know. Our heart knows that somehow you are always in this world suffering with us and somehow through that suffering making the world right again. Stir our faith so that our living matches our believing. Amen.

Scripture:

Isaiah 11:1-10 “Then a shoot will grow from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots will bear fruit. The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him— a Spirit of wisdom and understanding, a Spirit of counsel and strength, a Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. His delight will be in the fear of the Lord. He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, he will not execute justice by what he hears with his ears, but he will judge the poor righteously and execute justice for the oppressed of the land. He will strike the land with a scepter from his mouth, and he will kill the wicked with a command from his lips. Righteousness will be a belt around his hips; faithfulness will be a belt around his waist. The wolf will dwell with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the goat. The calf, the young lion, and the fattened calf will be together, and a child will lead them. The cow and the bear will graze, their young ones will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like cattle. An in…”

Psalms 72:1-7 “God, give your justice to the king and your righteousness to the king’s son. He will judge your people with righteousness and your afflicted ones with justice. May the mountains bring well-being to the people and the hills, righteousness. May he vindicate the afflicted among the people, help the poor, and crush the oppressor. May they fear you while the sun endures and as long as the moon, throughout all generations. May the king be like rain that falls on the cut grass, like spring showers that water the earth. May the righteous flourish in his days and well-being abound until the moon is no more.”

Psalms 72:18-19 “Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who alone does wonders. Blessed be his glorious name forever; the whole earth is filled with his glory. Amen and amen.”

Matthew 3:1-12 “In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, “Repent, because the kingdom of heaven has come near!” For he is the one spoken of through the prophet Isaiah, who said: A voice of one crying out in the wilderness: Prepare the way for the Lord; make his paths straight! Now John had a camel-hair garment with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then people from Jerusalem, all Judea, and all the vicinity of the Jordan were going out to him, and they were baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins. When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Therefore produce fruit consistent with repentance. And don’t presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that God is able to raise up children for Abraham from these stones. The ax is already at the root of the trees. Ther…”

Reflection: