First Week of Advent: Hope
First Week of Advent: Hope
(November 30-December 6)
First Reading–Philippians 2:5-11
5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Meditate on the passage
Consider: How does Christ’s first coming in humility shape your anticipation for his second coming in glory?
Prayer
Intercession: pray for neighbors & family, our church, the poor in our city, your work.
Pray the Lord’s Prayer
Closing Prayer:
Almighty God, give us peace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
-Book of Common Prayer
Benediction
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.
2nd Reading- Psalm 42
1 As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. 2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? 3 My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all the day long, “Where is your God?” 4 These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I would go with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God with glad shouts and songs of praise, a multitude keeping festival. 5 Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation 6 and my God. My soul is cast down within me; therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, from Mount Mizar. 7 Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls; all your breakers and your waves have gone over me. 8 By day the LORD commands his steadfast love, and 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 do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?” 10 As with a deadly wound in my bones, my adversaries taunt me, while they say to me all the day long, “Where is your God?” 11 Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.
Meditate on the passage
Consider: For what does your soul thirst? What does the psalm say your longings are pointing you towards? In what ways have you attempted to quench that thirst rather than wait for the Lord to satisfy you? As the psalm does, speak truth directly to your soul.
Hymn- “How Low Was Our Redeemer Brought”
How low was our Redeemer brought, the King who held the stars
Lay helpless in a maiden’s arms and pressed against her heart
While sheep and cattle raised their voice the babe could speak no words
The ever flowing Spring of Joy had come to share our thirst
How low was our Redeemer brought, the Lord the worlds obeyed
Would stumble as He learned to walk upon the ground He’d made
The One the angels bowed before would kneel to wash our feet
And be at home among the poor though He owned everything
Gloria, gloria in the highest
Gloria, gloria in the highest
How low was our Redeemer brought to raise us from our shame
And now the highest praise of all belongs to Jesus’ name
The Healer wounded on a tree to bear our grief and sin
The King gave up His crown so we could ever reign with Him
Meditate upon and sing this hymn
Prayer
Be our light in the darkness, O Lord, and in your great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night; for the love of your only Son, our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
-Book of Common Prayer
Henry Ossawa Tanner, The Annunciation
Consider the Painting: how does the lighting & shadowing communicate the surprise of God’s arrival? What does young Mary’s countenance convey?
“The incarnation means that whatever reason God chose to let us fall–to suffer, to be subject to sorrows and death—he has nonetheless had the honesty and the courage to take his own medicine. He can exact nothing from man that he has not exacted from himself. He himself has gone through the whole of human experience–from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair and death. He was born in poverty and suffered infinite pain–all for us–and thought it well worth his while.”
-Dorothy Sayers
“A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes, does various unessential things, and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent.”
-Deitrich Bonhoeffer, Letters & Papers From Prison
