November 30, 2008

Read: Isaiah 64:1-9

When you did awesome things that we did not look for, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.—Isaiah 64:3

Happy New Year! No, I’m not confused. Today is the first day of the Christian year. Our cycle of Scripture readings, the lectionary, and Christian holidays (i.e. Christmas, Easter, All Saints, etc.) start over today. We begin the season of Advent, a season of expectation, waiting, watching and hope for a sanctified and perfected creation. Advent, which literally means “coming” is the season in which we celebrate and await Christ’s coming into this world, both as a baby in 1st Century Bethlehem, and again in victory to set the world to right. At its core, Advent is the season of preparation for Christmas and Epiphany when we will explicitly celebrate Christ’s coming and his unveiling as God come into our world as a human being.

Maybe you’re thinking, “Boy, what does all that mean?” or, if you’re a little bit of a skeptic, “Do you really think God could be present in a world full of violence, greed, racism, hatred and poverty?” The Church itself has enough baggage to seem hypocritical when it claims that God is at work saving humanity and perfecting creation. As a Pastor and a person of faith, I have to be honest. There are days when I have my doubts about God’s presence and work in this world. Advent brings all of this out in the open. Nowhere in our cycle of Scripture readings are the claims about God’s presence in the world and Christ’s promise to return in victory more explicit. In the readings for today, the Psalmist, Isaiah and Mark all use powerful images from nature to describe God’s presence. When God enters creation, nature does more than simply take notice. It quakes, trembles and shakes. When God enters creation, no one can deny it. And I wouldn’t be a Christian, let alone a Pastor, if I hadn’t had life experiences in which I could not deny God’s presence. I have had serendipitous, emotional, clarifying and unexplainable experiences that I simply knew had to be God at work. But that doesn’t erase the long periods of time in which I desperately look for God to do something…anything.

I want to encourage you all to use this devotional and the season of Advent to do that. Use them to look for God’s work. You will no doubt look upon a world full of materialism, consumerism and idolatry as Christmas approaches, but you will also see exceptional moments of generosity and love. Throughout history, as Christmas approaches and we look to Christ’s coming into the world, wars have been put on hold, people have given more than they ever thought possible, poverty has been eased. It is a season when you cannot deny God’s presence. It is a season, when, as Isaiah puts it, “the nations…tremble” at God’s presence. I look forward to waiting and watching and expecting God’s advent with you. To end this devotion, pray not that God might come into creation, but that you might have the vision to see it happen.

Pray: Lord, I pray not only that God might come into creation, but that I might have the vision to see it happen. Amen.

Nate Berneking is our Pastor of Spiritual Formation and is in the process of reading all of the Pulitzer Prize winning fiction.