advent for everyone - scripture

A few years ago, when I was writing a devotional for Advent, the prayer of Zechariah in Luke 1 was my basis for an entire week of meditation. I treasured each word as I imagined them coming from the lips of Zechariah as he sees the fulfillment of messianic prophecies coming to fruition.

 

Then over the next year, my comfortable certainty around the scriptures slowly crumbled. By the time Advent approached last year, I felt almost betrayed by most passages and characters in the Bible as I learned more and more about them. I had learned enough to know that Zechariah almost certainly did not speak or write this poem, and may not have even existed. I decided to do my Advent reading anyway, despite anticipating deep frustration and disappointment.

 

Instead, I was surprised to feel a new kind of connection. As I read the words, I realized something so obvious that I had almost missed it: someone wrote this. Maybe not Zechariah. Maybe not Luke. Maybe someone we will never know. But a human in the past penned these words because they felt them deeply. That person felt that God was merciful, that hope was dawning, that darkness was not forever, that justice was inevitable, that peace was coming.

 

And so, despite the open-handed uncertainty with which I approach Christmas and the Bible, I still see so much beauty. There is so much I still don’t know about God and about humans. I hope that these words can be a few that paint a more beautiful picture of both.  

 

“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,
    for he has visited and redeemed his people
and has raised up a horn of salvation for us
    in the house of his servant David,
as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old,
that we should be saved from our enemies
    and from the hand of all who hate us;
to show the mercy promised to our fathers
    and to remember his holy covenant,
the oath that he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us
that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies,
might serve him without fear,
in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.
And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High;
    for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,
to give knowledge of salvation to his people
    in the forgiveness of their sins,
because of the tender mercy of our God,
    whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
    to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

 

May light find you in dark places this Christmas.

 

Merry Christmas!