Sunday December 18 Advent 4
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Psalm 24
While entering through the doors of the temple the poet sings a hymn of praise to God who brought order out of the dangerous primordial ocean. Appropriate for a Sunday as we enter into our worship.
Psalm 29
Astonishment at the overwhelming presence of God in nature who rules the untameable ocean and even makes mountains cavort like calves and oak trees “writhe” in a gale! We worship such a God, who makes such strength and peace available to us.
Isaiah 42: 1-12 What’s Isaiah about?
Today we read a passage from the middle section of Isaiah. This section of the book was written a hundred years later than the passages we’ve read these last weeks. The people have been captured by the Babylonians and are now in exile in Babylon 1000 kilometres across the Syrian desert. The author, called “Second Isaiah,” describes how God will rescue the people.
God speaks of being in charge of global history (a revolutionary new idea) and sending a leader who will enact justice throughout the land. The early Christians understood this to refer to Jesus, and thus the choice of this passage a week before Christmas.
In Luke’s gospel, written 500 years later, Jesus applies the verses about healing the blind and releasing prisoners to himself when he returns from the temptations following his commitment in John’s baptism to enacting God’s kingdom. We will return to this part of Isaiah, after Christmas, in Epiphany.
John 3: 16-21 What’s John about?
John’s gospel makes clear that Jesus’ arrival is for the healing of the world and that we are to respond to the light, not to the darkness that keeps the world in death. Jesus warns that it is possible to reject this light, and therefore to live in darkness. This theme of confronting us with the choice of responding to the light is present throughout John’s gospel.
The theme of “believing” in Jesus is better understood as a call to “trusting” and enacting Jesus’ call to self-offering love. When we don’t do that our humanity dies. John wasn’t saying that not “believing” in Jesus will cause God to condemn us.
This week’s collect:
Heavenly Father,
who chose the Virgin Mary, full of grace,
to be the mother of our Lord and Saviour,
now fill us with your grace,
that we in all things may embrace your will
and with her rejoice in your salvation;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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