It has taken more than half a year, but we have left Pentecost behind and enter the joyful and anticipatory season of Advent!

Here’s the lectionary readings for this coming Sunday:

• Jeremiah 33:14-16
• 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13
• Luke 21:25-36
• Psalm 25:1-9

The texts for Advent rarely change and I actually preached on this text from Jeremiah last year.  I have no idea what I said, but I am certain I look at this text a bit differently now than I did back then.   Between our Sunday morning’s together and the Bible Study on Tuesday, I have spent a lot more time thinking about God’s promise and how it was fulfilled in Jesus.  I can see from just this short blurb from Jeremiah that people might get an impression that Jesus would be a bit more of a typical king, especially as I might hear (if I was an Israelite at that time) the safety of Jerusalem and the saving of Judah as meaning someone will come and take back those lands and fortify them from outside attack.  Perhaps Jesus did come and fortify us from attack, at least safeguard us from the penalty and wages of sin.  Even then, people wanted things made in a microwave, they wanted the type of justice handed out to be the type they had seen on the battlefield before, not something Spiritual that aimed to protect and have them live in safety for eternity.

Maybe it's because I continue to linger in the previous text, but the first two lines of Psalm 25 speak to me in a similar regard.  I am putting my faith in you God, in something I cannot pretend to understand and in something that will not always look like I imagine or work out in a way that I particularly plan or like in the moment.  My whole being is lifted up to the Lord, my entirety, not just some of me.   I am turning over my past, present and future to the one whom created me, to the one whom redeemed me and to the one who as it says in verse five has had compassion and love for, we as a people from the beginning of time.

Joy to the World rings in my head as I read the epistle lesson this week.  How can we adequately thank God for the joy we have in our hearts knowing that we belong to Him and that we are saved through Jesus Christ?   How can repay God for the moments of joy we have encountered in Christmas seasons past?  There will be a joy in my heart on Christmas Eve, as it is every year, that despite its indescribable wonder, I can only imagine is a dim preview of what is yet to come.  We find that it again comes down to love.  Paul speaks of loving one another and it points me to John 3:16. We can never thank God enough for the gift of his son and we can never match the love that led him through that sacrifice.

Luke gives us some apocalyptic words from Jesus in the Gospel lesson this week.  He is also speaking prophetically about himself.   There are warnings about preparedness.   Whenever I think about preparedness, I think about something Reverend Dallas Landrum said one Sunday morning about an Eagle.  I was in about 5^th or 6^th grade and the story resonated with me.   The basics of the story was that an Eagle rested on a tree branch near a waterfall.  The light mist of the falls fell on the bird, but more importantly on the branches.  The weather turned freezing, and the bird got stuck, frozen to the branch and died as a result of not being able to move.  I don’t know how that relates exactly to the text at hand, but you get what you pay for (this blog is free).  The words towards the end of the passage speak directly to us in these days, telling us not to let our hearts be weighed down with things including the “worries of this life.”  I spoke with someone the other day who was tormented by the stress of work and the seemingly never-ending issues that need to be dealt with and dealt with right away.   Another had recently switched jobs and was finding the culture so much different, lamenting the family atmosphere she enjoyed in her previous position.  It’s not hard, but quite easy to get caught up in the worries of this life and be pressing on each day to either get ahead or just keep our heads above water.  Hopefully we can also spend some time thinking about and finding joy in the promise God made and kept through His son Jesus.

These are just my initial ramblings on the four readings for the week as prescribed by the Revised Common Lectionary.  I pray that we all spend more time studying these texts to discover what God wants us to hear.  Blessings to all of you and hope to see you Sunday morning!