Second Monday of Advent
Scripture Reading for Today:
Fear Not?
by Nelson Boschman
Dear reader,
What are you afraid of?
(What a way to start an Advent devotional, right?)
Before you try to answer—if you even want to, that is—I need to ask: What got stirred in you by the question itself? Were you drawn in, or did you want to keep scrolling?
I wonder if you’re sitting in a comfortable, warm, dry place. Curled up in a favourite chair, perhaps, in your PJs, with a favourite blanket, sipping a favourite hot beverage. Maybe a Chai latte, or an Americano.
What I’ve described here, as you may have guessed, is My Ideal Advent Season Reading Scenario. These are my preferences. My “settings”. And most often, I like my devotional content to match my surroundings. So, to be honest, my natural instinct, when asked what I’m afraid of, is to avoid the question. Let’s see what tomorrow’s reading is about, shall we? I’d rather not feel uneasy when I’ve gone to all this work to make myself so comfy.
Just me?
(I mean, we’ve made it this far. Could we agree to hold the question for a bit and keep going? I’ll stick around if you do.)
Our lectionary psalm for today, Psalm 27, opens like a first serve by Serena Williams at Wimbledon:
The LORD is my light and salvation—whom shall I fear?
The LORD is the stronghold of my life—of whom shall I be afraid?
Boom. Strong, powerful, assured. Right out of the gate, we’re met by a barrage of acclamations that with God on our side, we’re virtually untouchable. It only escalates from there:
When the wicked advance against me to devour me,
it is my enemies and my foes who will stumble and fall.
Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear;
though war break out against me, even then I will be confident.
Whoever’s praying this has got this, know what I mean?
For me, it’s helpful to think of David as the one who originally prayed these words. To picture him running all over the place in little more than a loincloth, some basic battle garb, and a tiny entourage of merry men. Can you imagine the scene? David and his crew scamper across deserts and valleys for days on end, with King Saul’s army in hot pursuit, literally threatening war. Finally, under cover of night, they elude capture (or worse) by hiding in a cave.
Score one in the win column for David.
Was that the moment when, finally able to gulp down some water and breathe some heavy sighs of relief, he pulled out his prayer journal to write Psalm 27? I wonder.
Commentators refer to this prayer as “a psalm of confidence.” That checks out. It makes sense to pray this when you’ve been miraculously spared from real danger, or when your life’s generally humming along well. Psalm 27 majors on confidence and gratitude. And yet, it also contains moments where we’re invited to pray our vulnerability. It gives us words to pray in times when, like David—or Mary or Joseph, for that matter—we feel less than confident, dangerously exposed, or alone:
Hear my voice when I call, LORD; be merciful to me and answer me…
Do not hide your face from me, do not turn your servant away in anger;
you have been my helper.
Do not reject me or forsake me, God my Savior.
Though my father and mother forsake me,
the LORD will receive me…
Do not turn me over to the desire of my foes,
for false witnesses rise up against me,
spouting malicious accusations.
Interestingly, these bits are from the middle of the psalm. After all the bravado off the top.
Have David’s circumstances shifted? What’s causing him to think God would even consider taking such actions against him? To hide, to look away in anger, to reject, to forsake, to turn him over into enemy hands? What if the middle of the psalm parallels the middle of the night, when fears and doubts creep in again? Perhaps morning has arrived, and our hero is simply bracing himself for another day of being chased across the countryside.
Whatever may have been going on for David, these words of honest longing, for me, anyway, balance out the bulletproof-ness of the beginning. I need them if I’m going to pray this psalm authentically.
A few years back, our church began to engage in a significant conversation around the inclusion of our LGBTQ+ siblings. We were part of a non-inclusive denomination, but wondered whether we were being led to embrace a different posture. In one of our earliest conversations as leaders, which I hope I’ll always remember, someone posed the question:
What are we afraid of?
(There it is again. Sorry for the lack of trigger warning. You knew we’d have to circle back eventually, right?)
It took guts just to say the question out loud. But it needed to be asked. And the asking unlocked something among us. We found the courage to be vulnerable in naming our long list of fears, including the potential losses of relationship and denominational affiliation, as well as the difficult, painful conversations that would inevitably lead to conflict and misunderstanding. This in turn led us to ask some follow-up questions, like: What are our best hopes for this process? What do we dream of?
To get there, though, we first had to sit with fear.
And as Scott Erickson reminds us, fear hates vulnerability.
It’s wild to think of Psalm 27 in the context of the first Advent.
There was so much to be afraid of: from the dramatic, life-threatening realities of empirical oppression to the mysterious, high-stakes particularities of Mary and Joseph’s journey. Increasingly, when I read those gospel stories, everything feels tense and on-edge.
Thank goodness for the angels, who kept telling everyone not to be afraid. If it weren’t for their repeated assurances that God’s entire business was about good tidings of great joy—for all the people—the divine light may as well be invisible, the dark afraidness total. But both are part of the story, then as now. In Advent, it’s crucial we acknowledge that.
To affirm with the psalmist, “The LORD is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear?” is not to say that fear is now a thing of the past.
In sending the Incarnate One, God doesn’t promise to eradicate fear.
God does promise to be with us in it.
How might we experience God’s presence in whatever we’re facing?
One of the beautiful surprises, both here in the psalm, and within Advent, is the means of light and salvation. According to verse 4, they are received—as gift—through a steady seeking and gazing on God’s beauty. And then, in the closing verses, we’re reminded that what it means to be strong and heartened isn’t what we think. It’s not armouring up, side-stepping uncomfortable questions, skirting vulnerability, and trying to live entirely without fear. Not at all.
Being strong and taking heart looks like waiting. Even—or perhaps especially—when we’re afraid.
May you find courage to wait on God this Advent season, and may you experience the surprising beauty of Divine Light as you do.
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