Sunday, November 29, 2020:
Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19
Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, thou that leadest Joseph like a flock; thou that dwellest between the cherubims, shine forth.
Before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh stir up thy strength, and come and save us.
Turn us again, O God, and cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved.
O Lord God of hosts, how long wilt thou be angry against the prayer of thy people?
Thou feedest them with the bread of tears; and givest them tears to drink in great measure.
Thou makest us a strife unto our neighbours: and our enemies laugh among themselves.
Turn us again, O God of hosts, and cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved…
… Let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand, upon the son of man whom thou madest strong for thyself.
So will not we go back from thee: quicken us, and we will call upon thy name.
Turn us again, O Lord God of hosts, cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved.
We have eaten the bread of tears. We have faced our fears. We have borne the weight of years and years of torture, torment, and terror. We have suffered and we have been derided for that suffering.
So sings the psalmist in a song of lament and, against the backdrop of weeping and wailing, he sings on and affirms faith. It is the faith of one who has walked with the shepherd and knows the character of His leadership and the beating of His heart.
It is the faith of one who cries out to see His face yet again that the people may be saved.
We come to worship with a sense of living in interim in-between where we languish and lament. It is from this vantage that we long for a day of redemption, a future that is in the distance and yet, seems very near.
This is the song of a soul in the prophetic season of Advent.
Isaiah 64:1-9
Oh that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence,
As when the melting fire burneth, the fire causeth the waters to boil, to make thy name known to thine adversaries, that the nations may tremble at thy presence!
When thou didst terrible things which we looked not for, thou camest down, the mountains flowed down at thy presence.
For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him.
Thou meetest him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness, those that remember thee in thy ways: behold, thou art wroth; for we have sinned: in those is continuance, and we shall be saved.
But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.
And there is none that calleth upon thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee: for thou hast hid thy face from us, and hast consumed us, because of our iniquities.
But now, O Lord, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.
Be not wroth very sore, O Lord, neither remember iniquity for ever: behold, see, we beseech thee, we are all thy people.
Come, God, the prophet cries. Come and rend the heavens. Come and right all wrongs. Come and right us. Come and have mercy on us.
Come, however you must come, but come and come quickly.
We wait.
We wait in expectation of that which is greater than our power to perceive, conceive, or imagine. And, thought we cannot imagine, we hope and grope, and gaze toward the glaring sun of righteousness.
Our righteousness, like leprous rags, hold no credence with God. Their currency is worthless. The bargaining value makes us beggars.
So, we beg.
God is the potter; we are His clay. We call; we wait; we groan. In all of this we say, “Come!”
1 Corinthians 1:3-9
Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ;
That in every thing ye are enriched by him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge;
Even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you:
So that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ:
Who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
We are waiting for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.
This is our theme and our song on this first Sunday of Advent. We await the Son with longing hearts and eyes fixed upon the brightness of his arrival as King.
When shall it be?
How shall it be?
How long must we wait?
The Christian in the spirit of Advent is standing on his or her toes, panting with anticipation.
We are being enriched and bearing witness to the hope within us. Our waiting is not resting. The biding of our time is not complacent. We are not relaxed. We are activated.
We spend our days and years in fellowship with Christ and his people, in service, and devotion.
But what can explain the wait?
Mark 13:24-37
But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light,
And the stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken.
And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory.
And then shall he send his angels, and shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven.
Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When her branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is near:
So ye in like manner, when ye shall see these things come to pass, know that it is nigh, even at the doors.
Verily I say unto you, that this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done.
Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.
But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.
Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is.
For the Son of Man is as a man taking a far journey, who left his house, and gave authority to his servants, and to every man his work, and commanded the porter to watch.
Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cockcrowing, or in the morning:
Lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping.
And what I say unto you I say unto all, Watch.
It is a time of watching and watch we shall.
Many birds can sleep with one eye open, one part of their brains activated and on guard while the other rests.
No one knows the day or the hour. The reason we know of his first coming is because it is past. But of the future, no one knows.
What we do know is that even though heaven and earth may pass; his words remain and are active.
Therefore, this is not our first Advent and it may not be our last …
… or it may be.
How will you spend it?
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