Mic 5:2-5a
2 [c] But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah,
who are too little to be among the clans of Judah,
from you shall come forth for me
one who is to be ruler in Israel,
whose coming forth is from of old,
from ancient days.
3 Therefore he shall give them up until the time
when she who is in labor has given birth;
then the rest of his brothers shall return
to the people of Israel.
4 And he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord,
in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.
And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great
to the ends of the earth.
5 And he shall be their peace
who are too little to be among the clans of Judah,
from you shall come forth for me
one who is to be ruler in Israel,
whose coming forth is from of old,
from ancient days.
3 Therefore he shall give them up until the time
when she who is in labor has given birth;
then the rest of his brothers shall return
to the people of Israel.
4 And he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord,
in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.
And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great
to the ends of the earth.
5 And he shall be their peace
Ps 80:1-7
Rescue and
Restore
80 For the Pure and Shining One
Asaph’s poetic song, set to the tune of “Your Decrees Are Like Lilies”
1 God-Enthroned, be revealed in splendor
as you ride upon the cherubim!
How perfectly you lead us, a people set free.[a]
Loving shepherd of Israel—listen to our hearts’ cry!
Shine forth from your throne of dazzling light.
2 In the sight of Benjamin, Ephraim, and Manasseh,
stir up your mighty power in full display before our eyes.[b]
Break through and reveal yourself by coming to our rescue.
3 Revive us, O God! Let your beaming face shine upon us
with the sunrise rays of glory;
then nothing will be able to stop us.
4 O God, the mighty Commander of Angel Armies,
how much longer will you smolder in anger?
How much longer will you be disgusted with your people
even when they pray?
5 You have fed us with sorrow and grief
and made us drink our tears by the bowlful.
6 You’ve made us a thorn in the side of all the neighboring lands,
and now they just laugh at us with their mocking scorn.
7 Come back, come back, O God, and restore us!
You are the Commander of Angel Armies.
Let your beaming face shine upon us with the sunrise rays of glory,
and then nothing will be able to stop us!
Asaph’s poetic song, set to the tune of “Your Decrees Are Like Lilies”
1 God-Enthroned, be revealed in splendor
as you ride upon the cherubim!
How perfectly you lead us, a people set free.[a]
Loving shepherd of Israel—listen to our hearts’ cry!
Shine forth from your throne of dazzling light.
2 In the sight of Benjamin, Ephraim, and Manasseh,
stir up your mighty power in full display before our eyes.[b]
Break through and reveal yourself by coming to our rescue.
3 Revive us, O God! Let your beaming face shine upon us
with the sunrise rays of glory;
then nothing will be able to stop us.
4 O God, the mighty Commander of Angel Armies,
how much longer will you smolder in anger?
How much longer will you be disgusted with your people
even when they pray?
5 You have fed us with sorrow and grief
and made us drink our tears by the bowlful.
6 You’ve made us a thorn in the side of all the neighboring lands,
and now they just laugh at us with their mocking scorn.
7 Come back, come back, O God, and restore us!
You are the Commander of Angel Armies.
Let your beaming face shine upon us with the sunrise rays of glory,
and then nothing will be able to stop us!
Heb 10:1-10
Christ’s
Eternal Sacrifice
10 The old
system of living under the law presented us with only a faint shadow, a crude
outline of the reality of the wonderful blessings to come. Even with its steady
stream of sacrifices offered year after year, there still was nothing that
could make our hearts perfect before God. 2–3 For if
animal sacrifices could once and for all eliminate sin, they would have ceased
to be offered and the worshipers would have clean consciences. Instead, once
was not enough so by the repetitive sacrifices year after year, the worshipers
were continually reminded of their sins, with their hearts still impure. 4 For what
power does the blood of bulls and goats[a] have to
remove sin’s guilt?
5 So when
Jesus the Messiah came into the world he said,
“Since your ultimate desire
was not another animal sacrifice,
you have clothed me with a body[b]
that I might offer myself instead!
6 Multiple burnt offerings and sin-offerings
cannot satisfy your justice.
7 So I said to you, ‘God—
I will be the One to go and do your will,
to fulfill all that is written of me in your Word!’ ”[c]
you have clothed me with a body[b]
that I might offer myself instead!
6 Multiple burnt offerings and sin-offerings
cannot satisfy your justice.
7 So I said to you, ‘God—
I will be the One to go and do your will,
to fulfill all that is written of me in your Word!’ ”[c]
8 First he
said, “Multiple burnt-offerings and sin-offerings cannot satisfy your
justice” (even though the law required them to be offered).
9 And then
he said, “God, I will be the One to go and do your will.” So by being
the sacrifice that removes sin, he abolishes animal sacrifices[d] and
replaces that entire system with the new covenant.[e] 10 By God’s
will we have been purified and made holy once and for all[f] through
the sacrifice of the body of Jesus, the Messiah!
Footnotes:
- Hebrews 10:4 The Aramaic can
be translated “bulls and birds.”
- Hebrews 10:5 As translated
from the Aramaic. See also Ps. 40:6-8. The Hebrew of Ps. 40:6 has, “My ears
you have pierced.” The Clementine Septuagint has “My ears you have
prepared.”
- Hebrews 10:7 Or “in the
scroll of the Book.” The Aramaic can be translated “from the beginning of
your writings [the Torah] it is spoken of me.”
- Hebrews 10:9 Or “he
abolishes the first.”
- Hebrews 10:9 Or “the second”
(covenant).
- Hebrews 10:10 Or “made holy through the offering up of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all.”
Luke 1:39-56 King James Version (KJV)
39 And Mary
arose in those days, and went into the hill country with haste, into a city of
Juda;
40 And entered
into the house of Zacharias, and saluted Elisabeth.
41 And it came
to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in
her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost:
42 And she
spake out with a loud voice, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and
blessed is the fruit of thy womb.
43 And whence is this to me, that the
mother of my Lord should come to me?
44 For, lo, as
soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my
womb for joy.
45 And blessed
is she that believed: for there shall be a performance of those things which
were told her from the Lord.
46 And Mary
said, My soul doth magnify the Lord,
47 And my
spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.
48 For he hath
regarded the low estate of
his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call
me blessed.
49 For he that is mighty hath done to me great
things; and holy is his name.
50 And his
mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation.
51 He hath shewed strength with his arm; he hath
scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
52 He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree.
53 He hath filled the hungry with good
things; and the rich he hath sent empty away.
54 He hath
helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy;
55 As he spake
to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed for ever.
56 And Mary
abode with her about three months, and returned to her own house.
This is the last Sunday in Advent. Advent means “to come”. It means Jesus is coming. Every year we hope that THIS is the year he
comes back. Our beloved King, Commander
of Angel Armies, Good Shepard.
We commemorate his first coming, remembering that he saved us
from death, he became the sacrifice for us, that birds and beasts sacrificed in
the temple could not accomplish our redemption.
He brought a new covenant from heaven.
Covenants are tricky things—more than a contract, in which each party is
responsible for holding up their end of the deal—in the new covenant God the
Father exacts the price for sin, and then God the Son pays the price. It is a humbling thought.
There is even more. Our
Father gives us good things. As it says
in James, “every good and perfect thing comes from the Father” and so at this
time of year, we also celebrate the coming of good and perfect things—gifts
from the Father, gifts for each other.
An expression of gratitude and love given and shared.
I remember when I was little and it was almost
Christmas. The anticipation was almost
more than I could bear. It wasn’t just
PRESENTS, it was Grandmother’s raisin cookies, that only came at
Christmas. It was getting all bundled up
and making snow angels and building magnificent snow sculptures in the yard—we
actually got our picture in the paper one year with a life-size baby
elephant. OK—dad helped. The great Christmas Tree Hunt every year,
wallowing in the snow drifts in the mountains carrying a sharp saw (and living
to tell the tale). It was taking the
train to Illinois to see the grandparents, and reading “The Night Before
Christmas.” Did you know that my
granddaddy was the actual real Santa? He
was round and had white hair and was very very jolly. I got up one night and snuck out to the
living room—there he was, putting presents under the tree. Proof!
I’ve never really lost that excitement. Now I look forward to the Return of the
King. The Commander of Angel Armies
instead of Santa. Scripture talks about
all creation standing on tip-toe awaiting the coming of the King. Amen!
let it be so.
It’s inventory time, at the end of the old year, and the
beginning of a new one. I have had a
pretty profound year—two new ministries, Restoring the Foundations and Hospice
Chaplain—both require stretching my spiritual muscles to the max. And both require experiencing the world from
a new perspective. Like Mary in our
Gospel passage I have been thrown into the deep end and realize how very small
and helpless I am. I am also beginning
to see, in a very small way, how large the real world is. I’m not talking about the natural world that
our five senses are aware of, nor even the galaxies and expanses of outer space
that our man-made instruments can detect, but the spiritual realms that are so
much larger and more real than our “reality.”
And like Mary, I am struck by the contradictions: she was a peasant teenager raised up, to be
honored for eternity, mother of the King of Kings. I am confronting dark spiritual forces
through RTF and watching the Lord free the prisoners, just as he said he would
in Isaiah. Daily, I watch him work
through my presence and prayer drawing people to him in their last days. Profound mysteries.
As Christians we are called to live in another reality—in our
religious jargon, we call it the Kingdom, or life in the Spirit. We are called to be counter-cultural. Our laws are different, because they are
based on the laws of God and reflect aspects of His personality. We love others because God loves us. We don’t judge because we will be
judged. We forgive because we are
forgiven. The world calls this
foolishness, or even insanity. We are
radicals, profoundly radical, and bear witness to the mystery and contradiction
of that other reality.
Our scriptures today stress that mystery and seeming
contradiction. Little Bethlehem, not big
enough to be called a clan is THE most famous place in the world, and the son
of a carpenter is the King of Kings.
Oh, wait, he wasn’t actually the son of a carpenter—he was
(is) God. That changes things. But not the appearance of things. Our earthly reality tells us that Jesus was
the son of Joseph, a craftsman from a small town in a remote outpost of the
Roman Empire, in a time long ago before flush toilets. Why do we celebrate this?
Obviously there is something else going on here.
We have small clues that another reality exists. Unexplainable things happen—we call them
miracles. People with incurable diseases
are healed. Others are called home. Financial windfalls happen in the nick of
time, or we struggle along and pray. We
don’t always understand, other times we do.
The Holy Spirit informs us, talks to us, and frees us from bondage, but
we don’t actually see him, hear him in the usual way through our ears, or touch
him. If it seems as though we are living in a world where we can only
see a tiny part of what is going on and it makes no sense for lack of data, you
are right. But instead of just revealing,
God chooses to hide the true reality, to let us “see through a glass,
darkly.” The only way to make sense of
what we are experiencing is to rely on him, and his perception. We are confronted with the need for faith.
There are many, of course, who don’t see any contradictions,
and are not aware of any need for faith.
If there are questions, then we are victims of random chance. The world constantly totters on the brink of
chaos and no law is absolute.
This life, this universe, although hopeless and dark, is all
there is for them. I grieve for
them. No matter how infantile my
understanding of the spiritual realm is, it gives much greater light to my
world than I see in theirs. Every fiber
of my being rings with hope, diamond-bright knowledge of the reality of another
reality. I know the King has come, is
coming, and will come again.
I look for the Light of his coming every day. I wait on tip-toe listening for the sound of
the shofar in the distance. I pray daily
that I will not miss the signs of his approach.
Because I do know something:
IT’S ALL TRUE.
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