First Friday of Advent
Scripture Reading for Today:
Psalm 72:1-7
Of Solomon1 Endow the king with your justice, O God, the royal son with your righteousness. 2 May he judge your people in righteousness, your afflicted ones with justice. 3 May the mountains bring prosperity to the people, the hills the fruit of righteousness. 4 May he defend the afflicted among the people and save the children of the needy; may he crush the oppressor. 5 May he endure as long as the sun, as long as the moon, through all generations. 6 May he be like rain falling on a mown field, like showers watering the earth. 7 In his days may the righteous flourish and prosperity abound till the moon is no more.
Psalm 72:18-19
18 Praise be to the Lord God, the God of Israel, who alone does marvelous deeds. 19 Praise be to his glorious name forever; may the whole earth be filled with his glory. Amen and Amen.
Psalm 72:18-19
18 Praise be to the Lord God, the God of Israel, who alone does marvelous deeds. 19 Praise be to his glorious name forever; may the whole earth be filled with his glory. Amen and Amen.
Isaiah 30:19-26
19 People of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you. 20 Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. 21 Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” 22 Then you will desecrate your idols overlaid with silver and your images covered with gold; you will throw them away like a menstrual cloth and say to them, “Away with you!” 23 He will also send you rain for the seed you sow in the ground, and the food that comes from the land will be rich and plentiful. In that day your cattle will graze in broad meadows. 24 The oxen and donkeys that work the soil will eat fodder and mash, spread out with fork and shovel. 25 In the day of great slaughter, when the towers fall, streams of water will flow on every high mountain and every lofty hill. 26 The moon will shine like the sun, and the sunlight will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven full days, when the Lord binds up the bruises of his people and heals the wounds he inflicted.
Acts 13:16-25
16 Standing up, Paul motioned with his hand and said: “Fellow Israelites and you Gentiles who worship God, listen to me! 17 The God of the people of Israel chose our ancestors; he made the people prosper during their stay in Egypt; with mighty power he led them out of that country; 18 for about forty years he endured their conduct in the wilderness; 19 and he overthrew seven nations in Canaan, giving their land to his people as their inheritance. 20 All this took about 450 years. “After this, God gave them judges until the time of Samuel the prophet. 21 Then the people asked for a king, and he gave them Saul son of Kish, of the tribe of Benjamin, who ruled forty years. 22 After removing Saul, he made David their king. God testified concerning him: ‘I have found David son of Jesse, a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.’ 23 “From this man’s descendants God has brought to Israel the Savior Jesus, as he promised. 24 Before the coming of Jesus, John preached repentance and baptism to all the people of Israel. 25 As John was completing his work, he said: ‘Who do you suppose I am? I am not the one you are looking for. But there is one coming after me whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.’
No one waits alone
by Lea Wilkening
Lea Wilkening works with the Canadian Thriving Multivocational Ministry Project (CTMMP), a partnership of New Leaf Network and Briarcrest Seminary. She is also pastor of The Cottage, a church plant in Oakville, Ontario. Some of her "sacred side hustles" involve performing and teaching improv, serving on charity boards, and parenting her two teens with her husband, John. Mutli-vocational ministry is a great fit for her and she loves supporting and learning from other multi-vocational leaders.
I’m not a natural waiter.
I don’t mean the waiter that tends restaurant tables. I’ve spent plenty of time working those jobs to be proficient. I’m not great as someone waiting for their longings to be answered. Perhaps I’m a product of my instant-gratification generation. Whether it’s watching water boil to make it go faster or eating the little chocolates in the advent calendar long before Christmas, I’m uncomfortable waiting.
As a teen, I took a city bus to school, and the worst part of my day was standing at the bus stop alone in the morning. I waited in silence, except for the occasional nod from a passerby who managed to catch my attention as I stared down at my shoes. The few minutes of waiting alone seemed like a time warp, swallowing up most of my day.
In the afternoon, waiting for the bus was an altogether different experience.
Nearly a hundred students filed out of school to make their way en masse to the nearest stop. My tedious morning commute was replaced with a celebratory end-of-day parade of sorts. I can only imagine it was not as celebratory for the surrounding neighbourhood as teen angst echoed through the alleyways in shouts and rolling laughter.
Along the route to the bus stop, subgroups would form and disperse like oil in water, coming together to make plans for the weekend. Someone would separate to work up the courage to ask a date to the dance, only to merge again to debate whether the math teacher smelled more like coffee or cigarettes. Once the caravan got to the corner stop, the mele continued.
No one was silent and no one stared at their feet.
The waits were often longer to accommodate so many riders at once, but the time shared with friends warped into what felt like mere moments. Our closing-day rhythm was nothing short of a mysterious liturgy of youthful possibility.
Everything was right in our world, and as the school day closed, we looked forward to the wait together.
The text for today, Isaiah 30:19-26, speaks of Israel’s waiting. An entire nation is waiting for God to keep his promises. They wait for liberation, provision, and wholeness for the land. It turns out, they don’t make great waiters either. The uncertainty feels daunting. They can’t see a way out of their troubles, so the nation’s leaders look to form alliances with Egypt. It seems impossible that the parched earth would begin to produce and that their worn-out hearts would be replenished. So, they choose not to live the way that would bring restoration, the way of God.
Instead of grounding themselves in the slow, steady covering of God, they set their sights elsewhere. Giving themselves up to the oppressive state that enslaved them and subjecting themselves to a plethora of gods who were never fully pleased by their striving religiosity was better than the alternative.
At least then they wouldn’t have to wait for an unseen God to keep his astonishing promises. At least then, they were no longer waiting.
Every Advent, we remember the human condition of waiting. There are some seasons when the wait feels like we are drenched in the suffering of this world, like being exposed to a cold rain at a stop without shelter. So many feel the burden of waiting in this season. Some of us wait for a cure, others wait for relief. Some wait for change. Others wait for the return to better days.
All of creation waits.
In Romans 8:18-21, Paul reminds us that creation waits in eager expectation. The whole creation groans. The earth waits for healing. The birds and the animals wait for compassion. Nations wait for peace. At our very core, we wait for the day when God’s promises will be fully realized, when all things will be made new (Rev. 21:5).
What are you waiting for? When I was 3 years old, my grandfather took his life. He spent years in and out of prison. His blanket from the Michigan City Penitentiary, still with his prisoner numbers written in permanent marker, was the security blanket I carried throughout my childhood. His life was a product of generational trauma. I think I’ve been waiting my whole life for the day when there is no more pain and the suffering has ceased. When there’s no need for thieving or prisons because all will be well.
We wait for the risen Christ to come and sit at the table with us again. We wait for the time we will dwell together with our Creator face-to-face in the garden, the place where our soul belongs, our bodies and the earth as they are created to be.
One of the mysteries of this season is that we wait with all those with whom we share this planet. We also wait with all those who have come before us and those that will follow. Like a mysteriously too-quick end-of-day parade, time warps when we recognize our companionship. We share this planet with other waiters who are longing for something more.
We are caravanning with the Israelites in celebration of the birth of God’s promised Messiah, the Christ child. Their story reminds us on our way that the Creator of all times will be gracious to us in our time of need and, as soon as he hears, he will answer (v19).
Even if we are waiting alone on a frosty morning, staring down at our shoes without a friend to pass the time, God’s promises throughout Isaiah assure us that we are never alone. We have the voice of his Spirit behind us, saying, “This is the way; walk in it” (v. 21).
In his study of the Bible’s wisdom literature, William P. Brown writes, “Joy is never guaranteed, but it remains ever a possibility. Enjoyment thus is a wonder, a paradox in which the human encounters the Divine in mysterious interaction, a testimony both to the ‘hand of God’ and to the human will. Joy is both a gift and task.”[1]
May your joy this Advent season be this: no one waits alone. Let’s pass the time together, in expectant hope.
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