Advent Week 3
Sunday December 13, 2020

This week we turn to Luke’s writing which is an account in two acts: the  Gospel biography of Jesus and then the story of the early church–the “Jesus community.” Whether you were a Jew or Gentile in those days, deciding to become a part of this illegal, early Christian movement could bring punishment for your allegiance. Surely the message in both Luke and Isaiah that the downcast, lowly, and oppressed would rise up is a welcome and inspirational account. Like the Jewish exiled people of Isaiah’s time and like the early Christians, we also sometimes wonder where God is in our suffering. We long to hear the promise that a reason for joyful praise is the good news on the way!

Holy One, 
we thank you for the glimpses we catch 
of your gift of the depths of joy.
Even in the midst of fear, 
of challenge, of struggle–
even when we are not sure of your presence,
ignite the flame of joy within us, 
that we might glow with its brilliance
from the inside out. Amen.

(Light the candle of Joy and relight the candles of Hope and Love.)

Read Isaiah 57:14-19 and Luke 1: 1-4; 26-56

Litany of Joy

In times when humanity disappoints,
perhaps when even our own thoughts and behaviors disappoint,
it is an important act to call out, name and claim 
the consequences of our wrongs.
And in times of distress, it is a prophetic act to call out, name and claim
our belief in the promise of joy. 

Hear these statements of belief from members of our own congregation:

Hear the good news of Joy, Emmanuel is coming
On the hills or in the valleys, God is with us.

Hear the good news of Joy, that a child is to be born
In our slumber and in our work, God is with us.

Hear the good news of Joy, that the angels sang so long ago
To Mary so meek and mild, and to us is Joy foretold

The ancient song still echoes on, of peace and joy to all the world.

Benediction

We wait for justice
but we do not wait to work for change;

We wait for restored health
but we do not wait to work towards healing;

We wait for wholeness
but we do not wait to work at binding brokenness;

We wait for peace
but we do not wait to work to eliminate hatred.

Go into your lives humming the tunes that keep that joy alive in you and that spur you on in your work of justice and reconciliation. Raise your voices and say, “Do not be afraid!” Amen!

Adapted from Worship Design Studio materials by Marcia McFee.
Used With Permission.

Read other Advent 2020 Devotionals or download the book as a PDF.

One of the things we all love about Advent and Christmas is spending time with loved ones. One favorite tradition is to watch beloved Christmas movies. Each Saturday we will recommend one such movie geared toward families that relates to that week’s Advent theme and includes related Scripture and prayer. We invite you to read aloud these passages and prayers and consider how they may relate to the movie each week. There is also a movie option for grown-ups who want to dive deeper into that week’s theme.

Family Movie: How the Grinch Stole Christmas

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you. I will remove your
stony heart from your body and replace it with a living one.
—Ezekiel 36:26

Let’s watch a movie that captures the essence of this lovely Bible verse.
The Grinch tries to keep Christmas from coming, but can anything
really stop Christmas? When the Grinch’s heart grew what else changed?
Christmas is not about things. When we let go of what we think
Christmas is “supposed” to be, we open our hearts to what Christmas
already is – an amazing gift from a God who loves us very much.

Loving God,
Thank you for the gift of Christmas.
Thank you for the gift of love.
Thank you for the gift of you.
Amen.

Dive Deeper into Love: Film Suggestion for Grown-ups

Girls on the Wall, available to rent on Amazon

In this second week’s film, Girls on the Wall, the teenage girls of
Warrenville Prison are not your average delinquents. Having “graduated”
from juvie to prison, these are the kids most likely to remain in the
correctional system their whole lives. They are also some of the sharpest
and most irrepressible young women you’ll meet. When the girls of this
heartland prison are given an unlikely shot at redemption — the chance
to write and stage a musical based on their lives — they must relive their
crimes, reclaim their humanity, and take a first step toward breaking
free of the prison system.

Adapted from Worship Design Studio materials by Marcia McFee.
Used With Permission.

Read other Advent 2020 Devotionals or download the book as a PDF.

For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that
everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God
sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world
through him. —John 3: 16-17

I believe even when the world is and has been full of injustice. Instead
of waking up pleased with my own lot and apathetic to others, I wake up
and want to fight for a better world. Jesus said that the first and greatest
commandment is to “love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and
with all thy soul, and with all thy mind … And the second is like unto
it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Matthew 22: 37, 39, KJV).
Many, perhaps most, Christians can repeat these lines by rote, and yet
we often fail to recognize their significance. These two commandments
are together for a reason. The concept of loving the Lord is necessarily
abstract and up for interpretation. But the task of loving our neighbor as
ourselves is a call so clear that it is painful. Every day, we see neighbors
who could use our love, and we look away.

In this world, loving is hard. It requires taking risks with no promise of
reward. It requires helping those who may never be able to help back
and confronting the forces promising a select few peace and prosperity.

Our collective failure to love has made this world unjust. I believe even
when injustice surrounds us, because I think God wants us to see it
in order to really see each other. Through these commandments, God
offers us a path to real justice, peace and prosperity on earth as it is in
heaven.

Holy God, we come this Advent season asking for our eyes to be opened to
those around us. Move us to acts of love where we see the needs of those
around us. Help us to love others as you have loved us. Amen.

Caleb Doan

Read other Advent 2020 Devotionals or download the book as a PDF.

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him
—1 John 4:16

I am brought to my knees by a commercial on television. A newborn baby is placed on his mother’s chest, his head turned toward her face. From his little wrinkled countenance, his eyes immediately scrutinize his mother’s face, looking with intensity and love at the one in whom his search for hope and trust and life itself resides. I feel as if I am looking at a miracle and at a truth. We are born from love, we are made of love, and we search for love.

Everything good springs from love. All of creation comes from God’s power and love. He was so in love with his creation that he sent Love itself in the form of his son. He wanted to show us the truth and power of love.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Jesus spoke these words, understanding that the creative force of the universe not only loved the creation but was love itself. The miracle and mystery of creation are testaments to the creator’s unfathomable genius and love—from the beginning when massive exploding stars produced all the elements from which all matter is made, through the formation of the galaxies, the mountains and the oceans of our precious planet, and the emergence of abundant and exuberant life.

In this season of Advent — even in the tumult that the year 2020 has brought to us — as we await once more the coming of the Messiah, how can we not feel ourselves enveloped by the hope and assurance that are promised to us by the immeasurable gift God has given — to become flesh and blood just like us and to live on this earth with us in a quest to show us what love is and what life can be.

Go outside. Listen to the song of the birds, breathe in the crisp air, look at the amazing structure of a bright orange pumpkin, gaze at the heavens in the silence of a black winter night, revel in the sounds of children playing, enjoy a cup of hot coffee. All of these things are gifts to us from the creator. How can we in turn not respond with love?

Come, Lord Jesus, come. We welcome you in love.

O God Most High, help us to embrace the miracle of redeeming love that this Advent season celebrates. Enable us to see the unspeakable mystery of your breaking into our human world and humbly living here on this earth with us. We have no words to express our awe and reverence in the face of this towering miracle. Grant that our hearts and actions reflect the fathomless love that you offer us and that we live every day of this season and beyond as your witnesses and ambassadors to all people. Amen

Betty Schroeder

Read other Advent 2020 Devotionals or download the book as a PDF.

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, where is the one who is born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him. —Matthew 2:1-2

Shimon Ben-Aaron is my name. I am not a prophet—there have been no prophets in Israel since the days of Zechariah—but I have studied the sacred writings for many years. When I came to understand many of their secrets, I began to speak in the forecourt of the Temple sharing my message with all who would stop to listen.

With good reason my words offended the great King Herod. Three times his guards arrested and beat me. After that third time they roughly threw me beyond the city gates where I lay for hours in the dust by the roadside.

Many passed by, carefully turning their faces away from me. A caravan of strangers in our land, however, stopped to give me aid. The leaders of the caravan were three learned students of the stars, who had come from beyond the eastern desert. Their investigations had revealed to them that a new King of the Jews, the Messiah, was about to be born. Wishing to honor the young child, they had come to Herod’s palace to learn where they might find him. The old king had made a great show of finding the correct location, assuring them that he would also honor the new king. “The Messiah is to be born in Bethlehem, of King David’s line,” I said. “That is what we were told,” they answered, “But where in Bethlehem will the baby be? Is there a palace there?” “Herod has a mansion on the hill overlooking the town, but you will not find descendants of David there,” I said, “the Romans are taking a census right now and by their law members of David’s line are crowding into Bethlehem to be counted.”

Since I wished to pay homage to the baby Messiah also, the three scholars agreed to let me come with them to Bethlehem. We traveled through the night. The great star which had alerted them to the royal birth brightened the whole sky and lighted our way to the little town ahead. We went first to the inn in the town square. When he learned our purpose in coming, the inn keeper told us of a child recently born and honored by town shepherds. In the stables behind the inn we found the baby. The three wise men honored the young Messiah with rich gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Then they warned the child’s parents of the threat they felt Herod posed for their son, but Joseph, the boy’s earthly father, had already learned of this danger. We watched the family depart from Judea on their way to safety in Egypt.

When I saw the new king there in the manger, I had no gift to give except my love. In the years since that time, I have spread his story to everyone I meet everywhere I go. Perhaps that is my gift.

Once again, we await your coming. Help us to love you and our neighbors more fully. Come quickly, Lord. Amen.

Guy Johnson

Read other Advent 2020 Devotionals or download the book as a PDF.

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? —Matthew 6:25-27   

I believe even when
    the sky is a beautiful blue, or maybe even another hue
    my foot has a bad nerve, or I am allowed to serve
    that beautiful bee stung me, or my son is high in a tree
    the entire area decides to flood, or my husband’s finger is covered in blood
    my Mother has cancer in her lung, or when hymns of praise are being sung
    all of my body has an ache, or my son decides brownies to bake
    my son calls to say he is in a wreck, or when we are watching Star Trek
    after a rain, the sky gives me a rainbow, or my son drops an engine on his big toe
    the outside is covered in ice, or my neighbor is being extremely nice
    we are totally without power, or I see a magnificent flower
    the bills are all due, or the baby’s brand new
    when we are cold, in the rain, in a tent, 
    or just waiting for the Season of Advent when a tiny Baby will save me
    How can that possibly be?

     the soldiers put him on a cross
     and it is to be their great loss
     because they know not who is the Boss

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for the beauty of creation, the blue of the sky, the gifts of music, and the joy of family and fellowship. We thank you too that in the difficulties of life, you are still with us to lead and guide us on our way. In this Advent season we thank you that you humbled yourself to become a tiny baby and in this gift of love we too are offered new life. Amen.

Daphne G. Grady

Read other Advent 2020 Devotionals or download the book as a PDF.

I pray that your love will overflow more and more, and that you will keep on growing in knowledge and understanding. For I want you to understand what really matters, so that you may live pure and blameless lives until the day of Christ’s return. —Philippians 1: 9 – 10

One of the things that I remember most vividly about my father is his comments about “baby’s cheeks” – they are “just right for smack-a-roos.” My father LOVED to kiss babies’ cheeks. It was always the same: see a baby, make the comment. It was terribly embarrassing as a teenager to have a father who acted like that – who made comments like that. However, later in my life, as a mother, I began to understand just where my father’s sentiments had come from. His love for me and my brothers, my mother and for life itself was so great that it spilled over into his love for all babies, all children, all people.

There is, perhaps, no emotion that evokes more response in and from people than love. Across the centuries, there is probably no emotion that has been more written about, sung about or thought about, than love. From the romantic lyrics of “Come What May” in the musical Moulin Rouge (“Come what may, come what may, I will love you ‘till my dying day”), to the touching lines of the children’s book “I’ll Love You Forever” (“I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always, As long as I’m living, my baby you’ll be”), to the faith-filled lines of the hymn, “Love Divine All Love’s Excelling” (“Jesus, thou art all compassion, pure, unbounded love thou art”), people are touched by the idea of love in each of its forms.

We as human beings long for love, are lost without love. As babies, we need to be held, kissed, snuggled and hugged. As teenagers, although most don’t like to admit it, we still need hugging and holding. (One of my fondest memories is of my college-aged daughter climbing in her daddy’s lap for some snuggles.) As we grow older, we still need that loving touch, and perhaps we understand more dramatically and deeply the significance of love in our lives and in the world.

Surely the One who created us, knows better than even we ourselves do how much we need love in our lives. Perhaps that is why our creator sent Jesus: to love us and to show us the way to love others. The words of one of my favorite Christmas hymns come to mind: “Love came down at Christmas, Love all lovely, Love divine, Love was born at Christmas; star and angels gave the sign.”

Holy God, you know us Oh so well and call us your beloved. Let our own lives reflect your love to a world that longs for your coming. May your love be born anew again, this Advent season, in our hearts and lives. Amen.

Rev. Marie Williams

Read other Advent 2020 Devotionals or download the book as a PDF.

That night there were shepherds staying in the fields nearby, guarding their flocks of sheep. Suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared among them, and the radiance of the Lord’s glory surrounded them. They were terrified, but the angel reassured them. “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people. The Savior—yes, the Messiah, the Lord—has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David! And you will recognize him by this sign: You will find a baby wrapped snugly in strips of cloth, lying in a manger.” —Luke 2:8-12

Listen! Silence is calling.
Moon casts no shadow and owl rests from her hunt.
Orion’s belt shimmers in the black sky.
Do the stars ring like tiny bells?

Listen! Holy is the ground you stand upon.
Holy is the silence.
Touch the quiet, breathe the calm, absorb the turning of the universe.

Listen! The trees hold their breath.
Keep watch with your heart. Drink with your eyes.
Feel the atoms of love shimmering around you.

Listen! Do you hear angels singing?

Holy God, still our hearts this Advent season. Help us to see the “holy” in all that you have created. We listen for your voice. Amen.

Betty Schroeder

Read other Advent 2020 Devotionals or download the book as a PDF.

Advent Week 2
Sunday December 6, 2020

In both the Gospel of Matthew and Isaiah, a messenger appears as a sign from God, heralding a new era. In each passage, the words “do not be afraid” appear… offering a clue that the messenger was referencing something that induced fear in the recipient. A new way of being together, of relating and loving takes courage–giving up the present order, so that a better day can be born.

Holy One,
we thank you for the glimpses we catch
of your gift of daring love.
Even in the midst of fear,
of challenge, of struggle–
even when we cannot yet see a better day
when we will act
like the human family we are,
ignite the flame of love within us,
that we might glow with its brilliance
from the inside out. Amen.

(Light the candle of Love and relight the candle of Hope.)

Read Isaiah 7:1-14 and Matthew 1:1-25

Litany of Love

In times when humanity disappoints,
perhaps when even our own thoughts and behaviors disappoint,
it is an important act to call out, name and claim
the consequences of our wrongs.
And in times of distress it is a prophetic act 
to call out, name and claim our belief that daring to 
love each other as God loves us is a faithful response.

Hear these statements of belief from members of our own congregation:

Holy is the ground we stand on, holy is the silence
We listen for the echoes of Your love.

Sculpted by the Master’s hands we yearn to be held and loved
We hunger for the embrace of Your love.

In the beauty of a blue sky or the cold of the rain
We stand in wonder and awe of Your love.

Come Lord Jesus, come
We welcome you in love.

Benediction

We wait for justice
but we do not wait to work for change;

We wait for restored health
but we do not wait to work towards healing; 

We wait for wholeness
but we do not wait to work at binding brokenness; 

We wait for peace
but we do not wait to work to eliminate hatred.

Go into your lives humming the tunes that keep that love alive in you and that spur you on in your work of justice and reconciliation. Raise your voices and say, “Do not be afraid!” Amen!

Adapted from Worship Design Studio materials by Marcia McFee.
Used With Permission.

Read other Advent 2020 Devotionals or download the book as a PDF.