Third Wednesday of Advent
Scripture Reading for Today:
Zechariah 8:1-17
The word of the Lord Almighty came to me. 2 This is what the Lord Almighty says: “I am very jealous for Zion; I am burning with jealousy for her.” 3 This is what the Lord says: “I will return to Zion and dwell in Jerusalem. Then Jerusalem will be called the Faithful City, and the mountain of the Lord Almighty will be called the Holy Mountain.” 4 This is what the Lord Almighty says: “Once again men and women of ripe old age will sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each of them with cane in hand because of their age. 5 The city streets will be filled with boys and girls playing there.” 6 This is what the Lord Almighty says: “It may seem marvelous to the remnant of this people at that time, but will it seem marvelous to me?” declares the Lord Almighty. 7 This is what the Lord Almighty says: “I will save my people from the countries of the east and the west. 8 I will bring them back to live in Jerusalem; they will be my people, and I will be faithful and righteous to them as their God.” 9 This is what the Lord Almighty says: “Now hear these words, ‘Let your hands be strong so that the temple may be built.’ This is also what the prophets said who were present when the foundation was laid for the house of the Lord Almighty. 10 Before that time there were no wages for people or hire for animals. No one could go about their business safely because of their enemies, since I had turned everyone against their neighbor. 11 But now I will not deal with the remnant of this people as I did in the past,” declares the Lord Almighty. 12 “The seed will grow well, the vine will yield its fruit, the ground will produce its crops, and the heavens will drop their dew. I will give all these things as an inheritance to the remnant of this people. 13 Just as you, Judah and Israel, have been a curse among the nations, so I will save you, and you will be a blessing. Do not be afraid, but let your hands be strong.” 14 This is what the Lord Almighty says: “Just as I had determined to bring disaster on you and showed no pity when your ancestors angered me,” says the Lord Almighty, 15 “so now I have determined to do good again to Jerusalem and Judah. Do not be afraid. 16 These are the things you are to do: Speak the truth to each other, and render true and sound judgment in your courts; 17 do not plot evil against each other, and do not love to swear falsely. I hate all this,” declares the Lord.
Psalm 42
1 As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. 2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? 3 My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” 4 These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I used to go to the house of God under the protection of the Mighty One with shouts of joy and praise among the festive throng. 5 Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God. 6 My soul is downcast within me; therefore I will remember you from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon—from Mount Mizar. 7 Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me. 8 By day the Lord directs his love, at night his song is with me— a prayer to the God of my life. 9 I say to God my Rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?” 10 My bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt me, saying to me all day long, “Where is your God?” 11 Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.
Matthew 8:14-17, 28-34
14 When Jesus came into Peter’s house, he saw Peter’s mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever. 15 He touched her hand and the fever left her, and she got up and began to wait on him. 16 When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to him, and he drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick. 17 This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah: “He took up our infirmities and bore our diseases.”
28 When he arrived at the other side in the region of the Gadarenes, two demon-possessed men coming from the tombs met him. They were so violent that no one could pass that way. 29 “What do you want with us, Son of God?” they shouted. “Have you come here to torture us before the appointed time?” 30 Some distance from them a large herd of pigs was feeding. 31 The demons begged Jesus, “If you drive us out, send us into the herd of pigs.” 32 He said to them, “Go!” So they came out and went into the pigs, and the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and died in the water. 33 Those tending the pigs ran off, went into the town and reported all this, including what had happened to the demon-possessed men. 34 Then the whole town went out to meet Jesus. And when they saw him, they pleaded with him to leave their region.
Christmas fear
by Phil Reinders
Phil Reinders shares life with Betty, his wife, and takes great joy in being called “Dad” by Owen and Lily. Phil has served churches in Vancouver, Calgary, and downtown Toronto and is now pastor at ClearView Church in Oakville, ON. Since prayer was never his strong suit, he figured he better author a daily prayerbook, Seeking God’s Face: Praying with the Bible Through the Year. He teaches at Tyndale Seminary, and his favourite side hustle is leading the Habitus Community, a dispersed Christian community living out a shared rule of life.
“It’s the very nature of wonder to catch us off guard, to circumvent expectations and assumptions. Wonder can’t be packaged, and it can’t be worked up. It requires some sense of being there and some sense of engagement.” Eugene Peterson
Tis the season of endearing but innocuous Christmas pageants where the Christmas story is bubble-wrapped in the most adorable tea-towelled shepherds, bath-robed wisemen, cherub-like angels belting out their off-key alleluias, and an altogether undisturbing baby Jesus, meek and mild.
Trouble is, the nativity is decidedly not cute. There’s a wildness and weirdness to it that matches the God who comes. The very human response throughout the nativity stories, then, is the expression of fear: dumbstruck Zechariah, greatly troubled Mary, unsettled Joseph, and shepherds who are “sore afraid.” We really don’t take stock of how fear is one of the most consistent characters in the Christmas story cast.
Throughout December, we hear carols and commercials cajoling us to enter the wonder of Christmas. They are drippy calls that miss the relationship of wonder and fear, an intimate connection that feels too close for our liking. We’d mostly prefer a safer, sparkly sort of wonder, a bounded form of mystery—present but clearly contained, maybe a little like watching the silverback gorilla at the zoo.
But what if that gorilla breaks out of the zoo enclosure? And what do you do with a God who rips the time-space continuum to come close? Now you sense the appropriate fear that accompanies the mystery of Christmas.
To live in wonder is to live in the middle of life’s overwhelm. Much of the overwhelm is the deluge of goodness, the awe from the reckless generosity of the Creator. Yet a common part of the experience of mystery is bafflement. Psalm 42 sings of hope and trust, but is set against serious confusion and hard questions: Where are you God? Why so disturbed and downcast? Why have you forgotten me? That’s the hard edge of mystery—less a delight at so much more that I can’t fully take in and more so a raising of a confused fist against all that doesn’t make sense or doesn’t fit.
Encountering mystery feels akin to fear. Awe always has a proper hint of fright in it. When I hike in the mountains, I’m left speechless by the magnificent beauty, yet also silenced by the realization that there are a hundred ways I could die in this territory. After Jesus calms the wind and the waves, Peter cowers in awe-filled terror before Jesus. This man is too much, meek and wild. Isn’t that what the villagers of the Gadarenes (Matthew 8) felt when they met Jesus, the demon-hurler? Before them sat the region’s most notorious and violent spectres, now clothed and in their right minds. Nothing in their frame of reference could account for this new reality. And their response? “They pleaded with Jesus to leave their region.” (Matt. 8:34)
They begged Jesus to get out of town because health and wholeness scared the daylights out of them. We are so used to death that health terrifies us; we are so accustomed to shadows and despair that when hope and light show up, we hardly know what to do with them, let alone having the ability to recognize it.
More often than not, the instinctive response is to settle for lesser gods that we can manage because the Living God is utterly undomesticated and very much beyond our control. The fearful mystery in the arrival of Jesus is the coming of the Sovereign of nations, the firstborn over all creation, the Alpha and Omega, the resurrection and the life, the rival to every throne, including the throne of your life, the one who claims us so completely that nothing is off limits.
A tidy, safe god evokes no awe. Canadian author, teacher, and pastor Mark Buchanan writes, “The safe god asks nothing of us, gives nothing to us. He never drives us to our knees in hungry, desperate praying and never sets us on our feet in fierce, fixed determination … a safe god inspires neither awe, nor worship, nor sacrifice … the safe god is actually your worst enemy.”
In C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the Pevensie children begin to hear of Aslan, the King of Narnia, who is a lion. Lucy wonders, “Is he—quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”
“That you will, dearie, and no mistake,” said Mrs. Beaver; “if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or just silly.”
“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.
“Safe?” Said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”
The reverse scenario happens every Christmas. We’re not nervous, but a bit lulled by the image of a little baby—what could be more harmless than that? Yet the mystery in the manger is that the hand of power that rules all things is curled around a mother’s finger.
The season of Advent has been the church’s time to “prepare the way for the Lord.” It reminds us that this newborn baby is anything but safe and teaches us how to enter the fearful mystery of Christmas. Part of that preparatory work is to scrub away the froth and clichés of Christmas. Advent is a season of repentance, and one of the more important things I need to repent of are all my safe gods, the well-curated pantheon of lesser deities that are my worst enemies. Only then am I ready to be embraced by the One who holds all the hopes and fears of all the years.
I want to be there for the wonder of unbearable light, to behold the mystery of Immanuel. Along with wild-eyed John the Baptist, poet Denise Levertov puts me in the right Advent posture of unflinching realism and wild hope:
On the mystery of the Incarnation
It’s when we face for a moment
the worst our kind can do, and shudder to know
the taint in our own selves, that awe
cracks the mind’s shell and enters the heart:
not to a flower, not to a dolphin,
to no innocent form
but to this creature vainly sure
it and no other is god-like, God
(out of compassion for our ugly
failure to evolve) entrusts,
as guest, as brother,
The Word.
Thank you for reading the New Leaf Advent Reader, a collection of reflections from writers across Canada. If you are enjoying the reader, sign up to receive the readings in your inbox each day here: SIGN UP
And please share this reflection with your friends and family who might also enjoy it.
Join us in the Learning Centre on December 15th as we make room for connection and contemplative practice over these Advent weeks. Learn more here.
Listen to these Advent reflections…
Slow down, pay attention, and listen to the words as writers share their reflections on the New Leaf Project Podcast.
