Muddied Prayers

* This post is part of an Advent devotional, being posted daily during Advent 2014. For an intro to this series of posts, please read the initial post here. 

Monday: 8 December                       

Read: Isaiah 12

(Light two candles)

Reflection

There is an old English word that occasionally surfaces in conversations about marriage engagements. In the past, we would say that a couple who intended to marry were betrothed to each other. The root for betrothed – troth – is related to our more common word truth. But there is a subtle and important difference. Truth is about technical accuracy: “The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” Truthfulness describes reality with unquestionable facts. However, troth approaches reality according to the certainty of covenantal relationships. It’s not that what happened is unimportant. Rather, troth operates on the belief that the most trustworthy facts of reality are relational. Continue reading →

* This post is part of an Advent devotional, being posted daily during Advent 2014. For an intro to this series of posts, please read the initial post here. 

Second Sunday of Advent: 7 December – Unshakeable Peace      

Our Context               

Our attempts at peace are so fragile. But really, how could they be more than that?  Almost since the beginning, we have distrusted each other and hidden ourselves in shame. We live not as human beings, but as suspicious beings. We doubt each other’s sincerity. We question each other’s motives. We look to protect ourselves first and only trust others as long as they agree with us. How can there be peace, when everyone is a potential enemy? And when we pause long enough and our honest enough with ourselves and each other, we realize that we do not have peace with each other because we do not have peace with God. Where is the peace that will light our way? Continue reading →

* This post is part of an Advent devotional, being posted daily during Advent 2014. For an intro to this series of posts, please read the initial post here. 

Saturday: 6 December                  

Read: Isaiah 11:1-9

(Light a candle)

Reflection

Attempt to imagine a world without war or rumours of war, without the threat of violence anywhere – not even among the animals. The ripple effects of such a reality are almost beyond our comprehension. For a moment consider some of the changes. Financial shifts would occur – no defense contractors and billions of dollars would be available in government budgets. Some changes we desperately, desperately long for already – no military funerals; no child soldiers; no mass displacements and refugee camps; no beheadings; no rape; no terror. Other shifts would be trivial and seem almost comical – how do you do a nature documentary without the pervasive predator-prey tension? It is nearly impossible for us to conceive of that world. Continue reading →

* This post is part of an Advent devotional, being posted daily during Advent 2014. For an intro to this series of posts, please read the initial post here. 

Friday: 5 December                  

Read: Isaiah 9:2-7

(Light a candle)

Reflection

A whole new reality suddenly bursts into being within this passage. Darkness is cast off. Oppressive yokes and chains are broken. The battle garments – stained as they are with the mingled blood of victims and perpetrators – are burned. This new reality is announced in harvest-style celebrations. Do you hear the relief in the soldiers’ voices? They are celebrating because war is over. There are no more battles to be fought, no more fear of impending threat or sudden attack. And Isaiah’s audacious assertion is that this peaceable kingdom will arrive with the birth of a child.  Continue reading →

* This post is part of an Advent devotional, being posted daily during Advent 2014. For an intro to this series of posts, please read the initial post here. 

Thursday: 4 December                  

Read: Isaiah 8:11-18

(Light a candle)

Reflection

We are quick in our culture to use God’s name how ever and whenever we want. Just a few chapters before this one, Isaiah sees God seated in the heavenly throne room. His response to this encounter is to cry out “Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips.” We need not listen long before realizing that Isaiah could just as easily have been talking about our day and age as his own. From OMG in our texts to Jesus’ name as a way of punctuating our sentences with anger or surprise, we have made the holy into a flippant and cheap way of expressing ourselves.  Continue reading →

* This post is part of an Advent devotional being posted daily during Advent 2014. For an intro to this series of posts, please read the initial post here. 

Wednesday: 3 December                  

Read: Isaiah 4:2-6

(Light a candle)

Reflection

Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken describes in wistful terms how each choice we make and each way we take leads to another way, so that it is impossible to go back and start our journeys over. Through a mixture of not doing what we should do and then doing what we should not do, we find ourselves entangled in broken relationships with each other and estranged from God. Continue reading →

* This post is part of an Advent devotional, being posted daily during Advent 2014. For an intro to this series of posts, please read the initial post here. 

Tuesday: 2 December                  

Read: Isaiah 2:1-5

(Light a candle)

Reflection

How odd this message must have sounded to those who heard it first. Instead of the typical religious mantra of “Save us from those who are not like us” this passage describes a coming kingdom in which all the nations will come to the mountain of the Lord. There, the Lord will teach the nations and judge between them, leading to a new and almost unthinkable reality: the nations of the world will turn their instruments of violence into tools that cause the earth itself to flourish.  Continue reading →

* This post is part of an Advent devotional, being posted daily during Advent 2014. For an intro to this series of posts, please read the initial post here. 

Monday: 1 December 

Read: Isaiah 1:1-4

(Light a candle)

Reflection

The confrontational tone and accusations of Isaiah’s opening verses sound so out of place with the festive décor in the stores and streets around us. Channels of Christmas cheer inundate our early morning commute and our morning latte. Vibrant greens, animated reindeer, and the jingling bells at the Salvation Army kettle are much more familiar, much more fitting to our seasonal sensibilities. Isaiah’s bold declaration of our rebellion against God clashes with the rhythms and priorities of our North American culture, especially in this ‘holiday’ season. Continue reading →

* This post is part of an Advent devotional, being posted daily during Advent 2014. For an intro to this series of posts, please read the initial post here. 

First Sunday of Advent: 30 November – A Glimmer of Hope

Our Context               

It’s not a new story. The world God created very good and full of light has been dragged into the mire of our sins and cloaked in a hopeless darkness. We feel the hopelessness in the weakness of our bodies. We hear it in our angry and greedy voices. We see it in the aftermath of war and in the devastation of typhoons and earthquakes. Though we are witnesses to the brokenness our sins have unleashed, we have been powerless to stop sinning. In fact, day after day and night after night, we continue to sin, multiplying the chaos that our sins provoke. We are entangled in a darkness that we cannot escape. Where is the hope that will light our way?  Continue reading →

Remembering & Anticipating

Stationed at their post on the back of the couch, faces and hands pressed against the frosty window, our kids keep watch for that first glimpse of red brake lights lighting up, while Grandma’s burgundy Honda slows, making the turn into our driveway. Any moment they will abandon their post in a flurry of singular delight: “Grandma is here! Grandma is here!” The ensuing mad scamper of children dashing through living room and dining room, then kitchen and back hall will leave couch cushions crumpled, once neatly folded blankets askew, and our pets in a confused scurry, unsure of whether they should hide under the table, join the joyful delight, or courageously defend our door.  Continue reading →