Courage
Strengthen the weak hands,
and make firm the feeble knees.
Say to those who are of a fearful heart,
“Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God,
who will come and save you.”
—Isaiah 35.3-4
You who sit by the bedside,
who stay late to finish the report,
who wrestle your tireless demons,
do not fear.
You who gaze at the x-ray,
who face another meeting at the school,
who care for the aging parent,
have courage.
You who lament our cruelty and greed,
who write letters about the climate,
who stand in silence outside the prison,
stay firm.
God is not far, nor careless, nor scornful.
God is here, here to accompany,
here to love, here to save.
Keep faith.
When you are weary God will strengthen you;
when you are afraid God will sustain you;
when you cannot go on, rest your head:
God will carry on.
In your weak hands, in your feeble knees
the Beloved is present, full of grace:
not the outcome but the presence, always.
Take courage.
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Lord Jesus Christ
your world awaits you.
In the longing of the persecuted for justice;
in the longing of the poor for prosperity;
in the longing of the privileged
for riches greater than wealth;
in the longing of our hearts for a better life;
and in the song of your Church,
expectation is ever present.
O come, Lord, desire behind our greatest needs.
O come, Lord, Liberator of humanity.
O come, Lord, O come, Immanuel.
Lord, prepare us for your Advent coming.
In our prayers today
we try to come to you,
sure that you will come the rest of the way.
Lord, prepare us for your coming – in the church.
Clean out the unnecessary clutter of our church life,
the piles of dead habits,
the cupboards of prejudice,
the cobwebs of compromise
and the sad rotas of forgotten dreams.
Open your church to the free flow of your refreshing Spirit.
Give to this church a new vision and hope.
Lord, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.
Advent Lord, come ever nearer.
Come to rejuvenate our faith.
Come to fortify our social conscience.
Come to open wide our eyes of wonder.
So that when the Saviour comes,
he may steal into our hearts – and find them ready.
Even so, come, Lord Jesus.
Baptist Union of Great Britain
Psalm 36:9
For you are the fountain of life,
the light by which we see.
the light by which we see.
John 1:1-5, 14
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Advent, meaning “the coming,” is a time when we wait expectantly. Christians began to celebrate it as a season during the fourth and fifth centuries. Like Mary, we celebrate the coming of the Christ child, what God has already done. And we wait in expectation of the full coming of God’s reign on earth and for the return of Christ, what God will yet do. But this waiting is not a passive waiting. It is an active waiting. As any expectant mother knows, this waiting also involves preparation, exercise, nutrition, care, prayer, work; and birth involves pain, blood, tears, joy, release, community. It is called labor for a reason. Likewise, we are in a world pregnant with hope, and we live in the expectation of the coming of God’s kingdom on earth. As we wait, we also work, cry, pray, ache; we are the midwives of another world…
Advent isn’t a holiday party. It doesn’t pressure us to conjure up a hopeful face, ring bells, and dismiss the foulest realities we face. Advent isn’t about our best world, it’s about our worst world.
…We do the Light a disservice when we underestimate the darkness. Jesus entered a world plagued not only by the darkness of individual pain and sin, but also by the darkness of systemic oppression. Jesus’ people, the Hebrews, were a subjugated people living as exiles in their own land; among other things, they were silenced, (targets of brutality by the empire), and exploitatively taxed. They were a people so beaten down by society that only a remnant – most notably Anna and Simeon – continued to believe that the Messianic prophecies would one day come to pass. For many, the darkness of long-standing oppression had extinguished any hope for liberation.
It was into this “worst world” that the Light-in-which-We-See-Light was born, liberating the people from the terror of darkness. So it is in the midst of our worst world that we, too, can most clearly see the Light, for light shines more brightly against a backdrop of true darkness.