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Advent 2019

Make Room

written by

Sarah Stribling

except for those passages indicated by

KR = Pastor Kim RisedorphDS = Pastor Dan Sturdivant

edited by Dan Sturdivant

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Advent is a time when our wishes for how we

want the Christmas season to be crash against

how it turns out to be. Not every year, hopefully,

but more often that we’d like. Our desire to

rejoice and be glad at the end of a year can be a

pressure that forces us to confront how rare joy

can be and how unfulfilled our great longings are.

Advent is, after all, the darkest time of the year.

These meditations and devotions are intended to

help you peer into the rift that separates promises

made from promises kept; that is, the world we

have from the world that in the sight of God’s love

ought to be.

We invite you this Advent to make room for the

promise of what ought to be: the Christ child born

again in you.

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WEEK ONE

MAKING ROOM

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1st Sunday of Advent, December 1, 2019:

They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

Read Isaiah 2:1-5

Advent is a time to live differently: we prepare for God to work through us, here on earth. Our theme today is making room. Sure, we will make room for Christmas decorations and holiday gatherings. That’s part of the season, part of the joy.

I invite you this year to also make room for a daily devotional time, as we prepare for the coming of the Christ child into our lives. May a daily devotional time help us make room for a life changing event: the arrival of a tiny infant, a gift from God.

Perhaps you can remember or imagine having an infant in your life. Having that tiny bundle arrive changes everything. We instantly have to rearrange our days and our priorities. Our own schedule becomes secondary to the baby’s needs. Getting a shower in is a major accomplishment. It’s amazing and wonderful and chaotic and all consuming. Caring for an infant changes us, forever.

So it is with making room for the Presence of Christ in our lives. It has the potential to change us forever, again and again and again. Will we be willing to make room for Christ to dwell in our lives, and in us? When we do, we open the greatest gift of all: A different way of seeing the world. May it be so for us.

Reflection:

What priorities would you have to rearrange if an infant fell into your care? What priorities would you be willing to rearrange if the continuing presence of

Jesus Christ in our world fell into your care?

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Monday, December 2, 2019

Born in a Barn

This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.

Read Luke 2:8-14

Next time you say something naïve and someone says to you, “What were you born in a barn?” you can say, “No, but my savior was.”

The Christmas story is full of counter-intuitives. Yes, Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God, the one who embodies for us a life full of God’s grace and truth, was born…in a barn. Laid in a manger far from home, crowded around with sheep, donkeys, cattle, flies, lice and contagion, these are conditions no one’s newborn should be subjected to.

The savior of the world comes to us as a helpless, vulnerable, utterly dependent infant? He is not capable of the heavy lifting we need from our Messiah!

Why choose Mary as the mother—the unwed mother not even old enough to bear children? Why in the world do angels appear to… shepherds? i.e., dirtbags, drifters, uneducated losers?

None of it makes any sense at all. It’s backwards and upside down. Or is it our expectations that are backwards? And our judgments of how the world and the Messiah ought to be that are upside down?

If we are to make room for the Christ-child, we first have to clear a space in our awareness. We have to take a look at our predispositions, expectations, judgments, preferences and biases of who God is and how God interacts with creation and be willing to set them aside.

Reflection:

What assumptions about how God relates to the world might you need to reconsider? How is God inviting you make room in your awareness to reconsider

who God is and how God loves?

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Tuesday, December 3, 2019

God Winks

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of woman…

Read Galatians 4:4-7

Have you ever felt like God was trying to send you a message?

One morning, when my faith was especially in shambles, I asked, “God do you love me at all?” Later that day, I heard a song I hadn’t heard in nearly 20 years: NSYNC’s “(God Must Have Spent) a Little More Time on You.” I knew this was God’s “yes” to my prayer: the short interval between my prayer and hearing the song hours later, only underscored the role of divine timing that is so apparent in life. Only God could engineer such astounding coincidences.

C.G. Jung called such coincidences “synchronicities.” Oprah calls them “God winks.” To me, they’re a reminder that God is continually reaching out to us from behind the scene. It’s easy to miss these sacred signs of God’s divine timing; if we aren’t paying attention or actively looking for them, they will pass by unnoticed. On the other hand, if we make room for “God winks,” if we trust these signs will appear, we can experience God’s divine timing.

Reflection:

Have you ever experienced God’s perfect timing? How did you know God was behind it?

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Wednesday, December 4, 2019

Waiting for Godot

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope.

Read Psalm 130

Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot is a play about waiting for someone who never arrives. As the characters wait, they occupy themselves by talking in circles, exchanging banter, dancing, clowning around, and contemplating suicide. Unsurprisingly, Godot never arrives. Beckett’s play poses the question, How do we live authentically while we wait for that which would make our lives authentic?

A great irony of Advent is that we’re waiting for something that has already occurred: our Messiah has come, and unlike the characters in Godot, we know who we’re waiting for. Still, we wait. Maybe the hold up is God is waiting on us, waiting for us to be ready. What, then, would readiness look like?

One of the marvels of Advent is the mystery of Emmanuel, God with us. We believe God is present with us in Christ, in the breaking of the bread, wherever two or more are gathered in Jesus’ name, and so on. If this is really what we believe, why do we wait?

The mystery is that waiting, anticipating, hoping, and striving to remain faithful even in the presence of doubt, makes God present to us. If you’re getting your home ready for a beloved guest, the guest in some sense has already arrived. By waiting, hoping, striving, and making ready for the reality of God to appear, we are living Christ-like lives.

The question then becomes are we really waiting?

Reflection:

Surely you long and wait for something that would make all the difference. What would that be? How are you making room for it to arrive?

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Thursday, December 5, 2019

The Parable of the Sewer

…we will tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might,

and the wonders that he has done.

Read Psalm 78:1-8

Once upon a time, a parent gave his young child a set of clothes. They fit just right. Time passed and the parent died. The child, now a teenager, was sad. On tv, she saw an ad for a one-size fits all hat. All the cool kids at school wore one like it. The colors were strange and garish and it wasn’t really her style, but she needed to fit in, so she bought it. She wore it, but was unsatisfied.

More time passed and the young woman had a boyfriend. “Wear this,” he said. “You’ll look pretty.” She pulled the sheer fabric over her head. She didn’t like, it made her feel cheap, but she wanted to please her boyfriend, so she wore it.

Time passed, and along came the baby, the wedding, the divorce, single motherhood, and finally, the dreaded diagnosis. After coming home from yet another painful procedure, she slumped onto the couch, as her three-year-old napped nearby. I’m going to die, soon, she admitted to herself. This thought so enraged her that she began to cry, softly to herself, so she wouldn’t wake her sleeping child.

“I’m going to make my child something to remember me by,” she thought to herself. “A beautiful set of clothes!” Immediately, she took scissors, and cut swatches from her old clothes and began to sew them into something just right for her child. As she stitched the different pieces of fabric together she realized these are the clothes she always wanted for herself. But they were for her child.

Reflection: What no longer spiritually fits you?

Have you ever given something precious of your own to someone you loved? What did giving that gift give you?

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Friday, December 6, 2019

Hunger

[God] has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.

Read Luke 1:53-55

I want someone to stop me. I’m pushing the door of a fast food joint open with a to-go bag full of food.

As I’m walking that almost-familiar walk of shame back to my patiently waiting car, I secretly wish someone would point in my direction and yell, “Stop, thief!” and tackle me in the parking lot, as if I were a shoplifter.

I haven’t stolen anything; I paid for my tacos fair and square. But I am about to rob myself of my own integrity. There are more tacos in this plastic bag than I have fingers on one hand. And I know what’s about to happen: When I get to my car, I’m going to eat half the tacos in ten minutes flat, drive home, and hide the rest in the very back of the fridge where nobody will see them. Tomorrow morning, I’m going to hate the number I see on the scale – which means, of course, that I’m going to hate myself, too.

I’m not the only one who participates in this shameful ritual. The shame that cannot be named will never be healed.

Mine are the hands with which Christ reaches out to do good. At the same time, my hands are not spared the fire of searing shame as I shovel mouthful after caloric mouthful as the car radio inquires, “Are you Lonesome Tonight?”

We commonly think of Advent as a quiet time to ready a space for the Divine to be born in us, a time to clear away the clutter of the mundane that tends to fill up our lives this time of year. Yet this afternoon, all I have is an aching emptiness that is taking up space, an emptiness that I desperately, desperately want to be rid of.

Reflection:

What are you hungering for this Advent season? What longings are unfulfilled?

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Saturday, December 7, 2019

Ignatius of Loyola urged his fellow Jesuits to do prayerful self-inventory every day. It is the indispensable practice of his Spiritual Exercises. Called the Awareness Examen or Examination of Conscience, it is an excellent way to end the day. Or to reflect on the week you’ve just spent with these devotions.

The purpose of the Examen is to make room in your awareness for God’s presence by increasing your sensitivity to God’s nearness and movement as you move through your day.

Find a few moments where you won’t be interrupted. Sit comfortably. You may prefer to close your eyes. Breathe deeply. Now, recall the events of your day and how you felt about them. You’re looking for moments when God seemed near and when God seemed distant. Ways to frame your inquiry are virtually limitless. A few examples:

• What was the high point of your day? What was the low point?• When did you feel energized and alive? Listless and bored? • What touched your heart? What left you cold?• What pleased you? What disappointed you?• What fed you? What frustrated you?

You get the idea.

A couple things to bear in mind: It’s vital you do both sides of the equation. Also, no value judgments. This is not about where you should feel God’s presence, but where you have and haven’t actually experienced it.

Once you get good at this you can deepen your Examen by asking:

• When did I make myself most available to God? When did I turn away?

Get really good and you’ll be asking:

• What is God’s desire for me? What is my desire for God?

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WEEK TWO

DARKNESS / LIGHT

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2nd Sunday of Advent, December 8, 2019

Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.

Read Luke 3:1-6

In the Middle Ages, when lighting a fire from scratch was an arduous process, people often carried around a metal box containing a smoldering ember, kept alight throughout the day with little bits of kindling. This meant people could light a fire with ease, wherever they were, because they always carried the spark.

Today, we gather in worship. We gather to be in community, to read Scripture, to sing hymns, and to pray, so that we then have a light within us to carry into the world. We focus our attention not so much on the literal birth of Jesus that happened centuries ago, but on discovering his presence with us here and now. The question is not so much: was he born. The question is will he be born in us today? To find Christ in the present tense, is to find light in the darkness. May it be so for us.

Reflection:

Do you carry an ember of a fire you’ve never lit? What’s stopped you from lighting it?

How much heat does the ember still retain?

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The Darkest Place

Even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.

Read Psalm 139:12-18

What’s the darkest place you’ve ever been in?

The darkest place I’ve ever been in (in the physical sense) was a cave. I took a guided tour. We walked among the stalagmites and stalactites, admiring their structure and the unfathomably long amount of time it took to form a cave of that size. Upon entering one cavern, the tour guide asked that we turn off all potential sources of light – our watches, phones, cameras, flashlights, anything that might prevent us from fully experiencing what was coming next. And then, the tour guide turned off his own headlamp and we were plunged into the darkest darkness I have ever experienced.

It was disorienting. Space and time became irrelevant. I waved my hand in front of my face and couldn’t see it. I was in the depths of the earth, in God’s womb. Rather than feel afraid, I was curious. I knew I’d emerge into the light at some point. But meanwhile, what could I learn from this darkness?

So often, we speak of God as the Light. But the truth is that light is no more sacred than darkness. In fact, plunging into darkness as I was in that cave, can teach us something about ourselves and God. Spiritual darkness is not so much a hole waiting to be filled as it is a cave in which to go exploring.

Reflection:

What dark areas in your life are calling you to explore them?

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A Dark Night

The people who walk in darkness will see a great light.

Read Isaiah 9:2, 6-7

This night changed my life.

At sunset, I went outside to confront the darkness without and within me. In my backyard, I cleared a small patch of dirt and lay down facing east, as though I were lying in my grave awaiting resurrection. I left all possible distractions and comforts at home – no sleeping bag, no pillow, no blanket, no watch, no phone, nothing that could potentially distract myself from the terror of my own racing thoughts. I needed to stay awake the entire night because I needed to prove to myself that I could withstand the aloneness, the lack of comfort, and most of all, the darkness that I couldn’t see. I could only appreciate the sunrise after keeping vigil all night.

In the hour or so before dawn, a sort of insanity came upon me: a small part of me really did think that the sun would never rise again. But then, a glimmer of grey against the blackness! The grey turned to white and I knew the sun with its attendant warmth was on its way! My hope in the divine order was restored! After half an hour, the sun finally rose above the horizon. I rose up out of my symbolic grave knowing something very profound.

Reflection:

Many of us are currently experiencing spiritual darkness. What glimmers of grey can you see on the horizon?

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I’ll Be Home for Christmas

So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David…

Read Luke 2:4-7

The well-known Christmas song “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” always evokes in me a sense of loss, as if the lyrics were sung by some ghostly apparition in an effort to comfort her/his loved ones. Some people I’ve known throughout the years really have “gone home” to be with God and I can’t help but think of them this time of year. Christmas is about joy over what we’ve been given, but it’s also about taking stock and remembering those we’ve lost.

Reflection:

What feelings accompany your sense of joy this season? Do you feel a twinge of sorrow? Guilt? Nostalgia? Grief?

Do an Examen of these feelings. Write about them.

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The Broken Mirror

My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.

Read 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

Each of us is a mirror that reflects God’s image.

I stood in awe at the mirror in front of me. Sunlight streamed through the window and hit the silver glass as just the right angle as to highlight every scratch and flaw on the mirror – but instead of appearing as hundreds of ordinary scratches and imperfections, each fingerprint and scratch were transformed into stunning rainbows. All that was necessary for this miracle was a bit of sunlight.

As incarnated beings, we are like scratched mirrors who, though flawed, can shine and reflect God’s love to others. The flaws don’t cancel out our beauty; they are what make the rainbows possible! If all we see when we look at ourselves in the mirror are our flaws, we remain unaware of how wonderfully made we truly are; we remain ignorant of the many ways in which our light does indeed shine before all. Each of us radiates far more Light than we are aware of; the Good in us more than makes up for our “flaws.”

Of course, every mirror has its imperfections. The good news is that we don’t need to be perfect mirrors – all we need to do is catch just a bit of sunlight and God will do the rest.

Reflection:

Think of one area of personal weakness. How might it truly be a source of strength?

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Scar Story

Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.

Read Isaiah 43:1-4

I knew a young woman who taught me about the scars we hide, sometimes even from ourselves. Yet God knows we have them.

This young woman, when her parents slept, used to cut herself with a pocketknife she’d been given by her grandfather. She only used this knife to cut herself; knowing how sad her grandfather would be made her cry. This was why she cut herself. To cry.

One night, contemplating the next cut, she felt a presence next to her. She knew who it was, but she didn’t dared look. Then she felt him take her arm and lightly trace along her scars with his fingertips. It was gentle like rain. It almost tickled, but was as kind as anything she had ever felt. She wanted to recoil yet something in her told her to be brave. Then he anointed her arms with warm, spice-scented oil.

He paused. She could tell he wanted her to look up at him. She couldn’t. He said her name. In her peripheral vision she could see him silhouetted against the window, facing her.

She said to me, “I told him I couldn’t look at him. He asked me if I wanted to, that he wanted me to. I told him I couldn’t. I’m not ready. He said it was okay. He said ‘I’ll be here whenever you are ready, for you are precious in my eyes.’ ”

“Do you think you’re ready now?” I asked.

“To look at him? All I know is that he saw me. I felt him seeing me from the inside out. And he loved me. I heard it in his voice in the dark. I didn’t know how much pain I was in until he loved me.”

Reflection:

Are you carrying a shame so secret it discourages you from opening your heart to others and to God? Can you, to make room for Christ this Advent, pray for the grace of God’s healing? If not, can you pray for the willingness to ask?

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Defying Darkness

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

Read James 1:17-18

I stood impatiently in my driveway gazing up at what I hoped would be a spectacular meteor shower. After several minutes of silently waiting and hoping, I somehow knew I wouldn’t be seeing any shooting stars that night. Turning my flashlight back on, some surprisingly eerie shadows caught my attention.

There were some sunflowers a few inches away from a wall; whatever direction the flashlight faced determined the length and direction of the sunflowers’ shadows on the wall. By simply changing the angle of my flashlight, I could make the shadows increase or decrease in length. I had never seen light literally chase shadows and darkness away. And what’s more, I possessed the light source that enabled such a miracle.

Everyone has a Light within them that can both define and defy the darkness. We have the power to locate areas in our life where light is blocked, where shadows are created. Then, by the power of God, we can illumine dark places by choosing to enlighten them.

Reflection:

Everyone has a dark side, a shadow. What areas of your life are in shadows, in need of exposure to God’s life-affirming Light?

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WEEK THREE

HOPE / NON-ATTACHMENT

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3rd Sunday of Advent, December 15, 2019

Nothing will be impossible with God.

Read Luke 1:26-38

The angel Gabriel’s “Annunciation” (a fancy word for announcement) to Mary is a key Advent text. One way of understanding its message is that the salvation of the world will come in ways that we won’t have imagined and through people we never would have guessed. The insight here is that, yes, salvation—the binding up of earthly woundedness, the dissolution of enmities and the establishment of merciful order—will come through a person. Jesus isn’t the only one who saves. Jesus needed a mother, his mother needed her cousin Elizabeth and her husband Joseph and her circle of extended family, the women who accompanied her through her uncharacteristic pregnancy. Jesus also depended on his disciples, even Judas.

Each individual involved was a basin into which God’s Spirit poured. Salvation is a divine/human enterprise. The seed will come from our God; its gestation will be in us.

This theme works on a social and planetary scale as well as on a smaller scale within each of us. Within even the most jaded of us there are vestiges of the innocence Mary embodies. Her spirit is still uncluttered by worldly betrayals, still free to trust. She can still ask questions such as “How can this be?” not out of doubt but out of wonder. She trusts and lets herself be entrusted.

By her openness and willingness to be moved by purposes greater than herself the human divinity of Jesus came to be. It is still possible in each of us.

This week’s meditations invite you to contemplate your openness not merely to God’s desire (will) but to God’s movement in you.

Reflection:

If you have made room for Christ to be born again in you, have you done so out of an openness to being transformed? What are you so attached to that it’s holding you back?

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Green Onions

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Read John 1:1-5

I completely forgot about the yellow onions I put in the pantry. Weeks went by before I suddenly remembered them—and I dreaded what I might find lurking in the pantry. Cautiously opening the pantry door, I noticed long leaves growing out of a plastic grocery bag. My once yellow onions had rotted and sprouted green onions! Evidently, there was enough light in the pantry for the yellow onions to sprout. This incident became a real-life metaphor for new growth sprouting amid dreary darkness.

At the time of this incident, I felt like life was skinning me alive. And yet, by God’s grace a light shined in the darkness, and I, I knew it not. Only in the end, when the new growth was fully visible, did I realize that Light had been present the whole time. The life-affirming light enabled something deep inside me to sprout new growth despite the darkness. Part of me was rotting away, and at the same time, I was indeed growing into new life.

Reflection:

What is decaying in your life? What is sprouting new growth?

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Risk Something Big for Something Good

Speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.

Read Ephesians 4:15, 16

Speaking our truth involves the risk that we may not be well received. But God is with us nonetheless.

I was sitting in a Church council meeting where I knew I would have to speak my truth. My congregation had been carefully considering becoming Reconciling, and I felt strongly about inclusion enough to be part of the Core Team. I also had a personal stake in the outcome. I am gay. The issue before the council was whether or not to delay the scheduled vote to become a Reconciling Congregation, that is, whether or not they were going to accept me. The room was tense; complete with opposing factions. My stomach churned as I silently rehearsed the words I would say.

I knew I needed to do something to break the endless what-ifs flitting through my mind. Over time, I’ve associated certain gestures as mental stop gaps in order to interrupt my spinning mind. I cross my fingers as a signal to myself that I’m going into Hard Truth Mode, that it’s time to speak my truth in spite of my own fear.

Telling hard truths involves risk. But if we let our fear stop us, we become slaves to fear. Risk and faith go hand in hand.

Reflection:

Under what circumstances are you afraid to tell the truth? In general, how often does what you fear actually materialize?

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Transplants

Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse, and a branch from his roots will bear fruit.

Read Isaiah 11:1-3

God is a gardener. Unfortunately, I am not.

I recently bought a mini gardening kit and set up mini flower pots of mint and chamomile seeds on my windowsill. As the seeds germinated, I dreamed of sipping soothing chamomile and mint tea. A few days later, the chamomile that had looked so promising keeled over. The mint that had sprouted 2 tendrils also mysteriously keeled over. Planting seeds incurs risk that nothing will grow.

I’m not giving up, though. I’ve replanted the flower pots in my backyard. I’m still waiting, still hoping that something will grow. Meanwhile, I buy my herbal tea from the grocery store.

Reflection:

How do you respond when your expectations fail to materialize? How do you respond when your hopes go unfulfilled?

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We’re All Pregnant Now

My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you…

Read Galatians 4:19

If everyone truly understood that we have a Holy Spirit within us, it would change the world.

Jesus was not unique. The Spirit that dwelled in him also resides in each one of us. The incarnation invites us not only to consider Christ’s divinity and humanity, but also our own. Christ’s story is our story. He shows us what we can aspire to, inspiring us to become better people.

Before a baby is born, there is always a period of pregnancy – a time in which to contemplate and ready ourselves for the inevitable labor (in every sense of that term) that must come. We’re all pregnant with God – but only some people know this. Knowing we’re pregnant with God invites us to utterly and completely reorient our lives. This new way of seeing asks us to see God in every person as well as ourselves, to revere all of life. The ultimate sacrilege is desecrating our own or someone else’s divinity; hurting someone else or the environment is the same as hurting ourselves. Our task is to nurture and reveal that divinity to the world, and to unite the divine and human natures within our souls.

Reflection:

If you really believed it was up to you to bear God’s presence into the world, what would you change about the way you live?

How would you treat others? Those you loved? Your enemies?

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The Binoculars

From His fullness we have all received grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

Read John 1:17, 18

This is a story of grace.

I went to the ball park with some acquaintances. We sat high up in the nosebleed section, so it was hard to make out exactly what was going on below us. Luckily, my friend handed me a pair of binoculars. Not paying attention, I lifted the eyepiece and saw that the ball players were even farther away than I had thought! Turns out, I was looking through the binoculars from the wrong end. There was nothing wrong with the binoculars – the lens wasn’t distorted; I was just looking through them the wrong way. After turning the binoculars around, I was able to enjoy the game.

When the game concluded, my friend unexpectedly let me keep the binoculars. It was an act of pure grace. It wasn’t the material gift of the binoculars, it’s the sentiment behind the gift: the idea that maybe all that’s necessary is a change in perspective…

Every time I see those binoculars, I am reminded of how my friend blessed me, and how ultimately, all of life is grace.

Reflection:

When was the last time you knew you were experiencing God’s grace? What were the clues that made you sure this was of God?

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Domesticating Jesus

I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.

Read Matthew 10:34-39

The popular depictions of Jesus are like what you’d find in a department store window, especially at Christmas time. The nativity scene so cozy and warmly-lit, tiny pink-cheeked Jesus sleeping so sweetly in his little manger (it’s the perfect size!). “Gentle Jesus, Meek and Mild,” Charles Wesley wrote with this picture in mind. We’ve taken the notion and run with it. In illustrated Bibles, Sunday School curriculum and constantly circulating internet memes, this is the adult Jesus we get. So appealing! Good tidings he brings, full of good cheer.

We’ve made Jesus a mannequin, set him apart behind squeegeed glass. It’s like we’ve put him in a zoo, plucked this beautiful, unpredictable, wild animal out of his natural habitat and locked him down so we can visit him when it’s convenient.

This is not the Jesus God sent. Jesus did not come to make our lives easier but to make them fierce with love. C. S. Lewis gets him right in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by portraying him as a lion, Aslan. He bares his teeth and shakes his mane.

“Then he isn’t safe?” says Lucy, one of the kids who’s just discovered where the wardrobe leads.

“Who said anything about safe?” replies Mr. Beaver. “Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

Jesus is dangerous. See the Matthew passage above. Even as a newborn he’s dangerous. Look at Herod’s response to the news of the Christ-child’s birth in Matthew 2:1-18.

Reflection:

The gospel may be good news, but it was never meant to be easily lived. What do you find threatening about Jesus? His teaching and ethical standards? The people he touched?

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WEEK FOUR

WHERE EARTH AND HEAVEN MEET

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4th Sunday of Advent, December 22, 2019

An angel of the Lord appeared to [Joseph] in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for

the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

Read Matthew 1:18-25

In today’s Scripture we read part of Joseph’s story. He had a plan for how to take care of his pregnant fiancée. God had a different plan.

In saying “yes” to the angel messages that come to him, Joseph also said “yes” to a different future. Most likely, he’d had a different dream in mind, a different future planned for himself. Today we give thanks for Joseph’s courage, humility, and trust. If Joseph had not said “yes,” the story of Christ Jesus-here-on-earth would be quite different.

Holy One, awaken us to the angel messages that you send to us. Where are we called to say “yes” so that others become more aware of Your Love, Your Justice, Your Mercy, here on earth? Show us the Way. Amen.

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The Noonday Demon

A bruised reed He will not break and a dimly burning wick He will not extinguish…

Read Isaiah 42:3, 4

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, approximately 17.3 million adults, or 7.1% of the American population, experienced an episode of major depression in 2017. More common in women than men, the median age of onset is 32.5 The most common treatment was talk therapy combined with medication. However, an alarming 35% of those who experienced depression never received treatment, partially due to stigma and lack of awareness surrounding mental health issues.

I too am plagued by depression, or what some have termed the Noonday Demon, so named for its tendency to make those afflicted sleep the day away. My struggle with depression is a daily one; it is my cross to bear.

I somehow find the strength to rotate the shower faucet counter-clockwise. The constant sound of the water masks my crying. I’m trying to wash the sadness out of my soul. My story is not one of redemption or resurrection, but struggle.

Reflection:

What cross do you bear? Do you sense God’s presence in your struggle?

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The Precious Present

[Christ] came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, he gave the right to become children of God.

Read John 1:11-13

Today is Christmas Eve. After nearly 4 weeks, the day we’ve been eagerly anticipating is nearly upon us! Over the course of our Advent pilgrimage, we have been in labor: working, (not always comfortably) at examining ways in which we try to stuff God into a convenient, predictable box instead of letting God be God. We’ve risked something big for something good and experienced grace upon grace. We’ve sat uncomfortably in the shadows and darkness of God’s womb, waiting to give birth to ourselves. We’ve experienced the sorrow that so often accompanies this time of year. More than anything else, we have made room for Christ, who violated all commonly-held messianic expectations (not to mention common sense) by being born in a barn.

Alongside Mary, we have acknowledged that God’s plans may not always coincide with our own. By setting all our expectations about how God operates aside, we have opened ourselves up to receive God in new, unexpected ways.

God’s Precious Present has almost arrived—are you ready to receive it? Are you willing to receive the present moment God offers, not just at Christmas, but in every moment in time? Are you willing to pause your anger, fear, worry, fear, the To-Do list, and the countless daily distractions crying for our attention? Can you instead trust God enough to abide wholly in this Precious Present? It’s the only moment you have in which to receive God’s Presence with us in Christ.

Now, our eyes look eastwards towards tomorrow and the coming Sun of Righteousness—Christmas!

Reflection:

What barriers can you remove that seem to separate you from abiding in God? “Seem” because, after all, separation from God is an illusion.

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Christmas Day

…when completeness comes, the partial will disappear…Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.

Read 1 Corinthians 13:8-12

Greetings to you in the name of the one whose birth renews in us the promises of God!

When Paul speaks of knowing ourselves even as we have been fully known he might just as well be talking about Christ being born in each of us. God sent his love into the embodied world, and sent it as a newborn child, so that we might come to know the essential character of divine love: it is a love that sees us and know us completely; it trusts us enough to send this vulnerable incarnation of itself into our world. It shows God’s faith in us, that we might embody this love, too. And this we will surely do when we come to know ourselves as God knows us. Christ will be born in us. Faith, hope and love will abide on earth as in heaven. It is the purpose upon which all our faithfulness depends.

The most formidable frontier human life lays before us is that of making room for God’s life to be fully alive in us and then through us to be manifest in the world. God will do this clearing work, but we must consent to it.

In this Advent study we have invited you to take an extended look within as well as beyond your self to a world that may be hidden but nevertheless touches yours. We’ve invited you to see, perhaps, what you would rather not see in an Advent study, the same pain God sees, the same failings and weakness, the same shame. Our prayer is that in doing so you will discover that these are no barriers to God’s love. Indeed, they are mangers where you might come to know yourself as God knows you. Gentle Jesus will be born there, meek, mild and fierce with love. And we will be free.

May it be so this Christmas.

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We hope these reflections and Advent have

been meaningful to you. We pray that you have a glorious Christmas, the one that ought to be.

If you would like to know more about how this booklet came together or would like to discuss how the material affected you, please contact

Pastor Kim Risedorph : [email protected]

or

Pastor Dan Sturdivant : [email protected]

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mailto:[email protected]




Interested in exploring this devotional booklet in a small group or starting a small group? Contact Pastor Dan,

[email protected]

Maybe you’d rather to come to one of our coffee-house meet-ups, held each week this Advent. For places, times and meet-up hosts, check your bulletin, the “Mini Messenger” and “Friday

Messenger.” Or just come to worship.

Q

SAN RAMON VALLEY UNITED METHODIST CHURCH

902 Danville Blvd.Alamo, California 94507

(925) 837-5243

www.srvumc.org

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http://www.srvumc.org


http://www.srvumc.org

advent 2019 devotional digital - home - san ramon valley umc · tiny infant, a gift from god....

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