Archives for December 2014

Micah 5:1-5a, NLT 

Mobilize! The enemy lays siege to Jerusalem! With a rod they shall strike the Judge of Israel on the face.

“O Bethlehem Ephrathah, you are but a small Judean village, yet you will be the birthplace of my King who is alive from everlasting ages past!” God will abandon his people to their enemies until she who is to give birth has her son; then at last his fellow countrymen—the exile remnants of Israel—will rejoin their brethren in their own land.

And he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God, and his people shall remain there undisturbed, for he will be greatly honored all around the world. He will be our Peace. And when the Assyrian invades our land and marches across our hills, he will appoint seven shepherds to watch over us, eight princes to lead us.

Surely this prophecy was written for something that happened within, or soon after, the lifetime of the prophet. And yet, here is this beautiful kernel that speaks of something way out in the future, something Micah didn’t have a clue about.

“He shall be our peace. . . ” Now that, I can live with. That, in truth, brings life — and hope and of course, peace, to this over-anxious Nana. I love seeing it highlighted, where I can pick it up and turn it over in my mind, say it out loud while I walk and pray.

What we’re doing in this Advent devotional series is what the ancient church called lectio divina, or ‘holy listening.’ We’re taking (usually) short passages and reading through them slowly and intentionally and asking God to bring a small phrase, a line, or even a single word to the front of our minds as we listen. 

And that is the one that pops for me in this passage. What about you?

Thank you, Lord, that you are all about peace, that you bring it, you live it, you promise it, you hallow it, you show us how it’s done. Be our peace this Advent and into the year ahead of us; help us to listen to you well.

Micah 4:6-13, NRSV

In that day, says the Lord,
    I will assemble the lame
and gather those who have been driven away,
    and those whom I have afflicted.
The lame I will make the remnant,
    and those who were cast off, a strong nation;
and the Lord will reign over them in Mount Zion
    now and forevermore.

And you, O tower of the flock,
    hill of daughter Zion,
to you it shall come,
    the former dominion shall come,
    the sovereignty of daughter Jerusalem.

Now why do you cry aloud?
    Is there no king in you?
Has your counselor perished,
    that pangs have seized you like a woman in labor?
Writhe and groan, O daughter Zion,
    like a woman in labor;
for now you shall go forth from the city
    and camp in the open country;
    you shall go to Babylon.
There you shall be rescued,
    there the Lord will redeem you
    from the hands of your enemies.

Now many nations
    are assembled against you,
saying, “Let her be profaned,
    and let our eyes gaze upon Zion.”
But they do not know
    the thoughts of the Lord;
they do not understand his plan,
    that he has gathered them as sheaves to the threshing floor.
Arise and thresh,
    O daughter Zion,
for I will make your horn iron
    and your hoofs bronze;
you shall beat in pieces many peoples,
    and shall devote their gain to the Lord,
    their wealth to the Lord of the whole earth.

I gotta say, the pickin’s were slim for today’s scripture reading. It was either a repeat of yesterday’s psalm, the description of the fall of Babylon in Revelation 18 or this bit from Micah. 

And isn’t that just the way with the Word? I don’t like all of it, you know? But it’s there and it must be read and absorbed and dealt with. The truest line in this piece for me is the one I’ve highlighted.

Duh.

I most certainly DON’T know the thoughts of the Lord. There is no way I can grasp even a smidgen of them. Which is exactly why we have this book and why Jesus came — to help bridge the enormous gap that happens between the divine and the human. So, I’ll read this passage and I’ll say thank you for it, even though I don’t particularly l o v e it and I’ll hold onto that central truth.

I can’t know it all. But I CAN know Jesus and what Jesus shows me about God and the whole of creation. And what I learn there helps me deal with what I read in places like this one. 

Thank you for coming, Jesus. Thank you for showing us the good stuff along with the hard stuff. Thank you for inviting us into a new way of living and thinking — now, please help us to live well and think well.

Psalm 79, NLT 

O God, your land has been conquered by the heathen nations. Your Temple is defiled, and Jerusalem is a heap of ruins. 

The bodies of your people lie exposed—food for birds and animals. The enemy has butchered the entire population of Jerusalem; blood has flowed like water.

No one is left even to bury them. The nations all around us scoff. They heap contempt on us.

O Jehovah, how long will you be angry with us? Forever? Will your jealousy burn till every hope is gone? 

Pour out your wrath upon the godless nations—not on us—on kingdoms that refuse to pray, that will not call upon your name! 

For they have destroyed your people Israel, invading every home. 

Oh, do not hold us guilty for our former sins!

Let your tenderhearted mercies meet our needs, for we are brought low to the dust. Help us, God of our salvation!

Help us for the honor of your name. Oh, save us and forgive our sins. 

Why should the heathen nations be allowed to scoff, “Where is their God?”

Publicly avenge this slaughter of your people! Listen to the sighing of the prisoners and those condemned to die.

Demonstrate the greatness of your power by saving them. O Lord, take sevenfold vengeance on these nations scorning you.

Then we your people, the sheep of your pasture, will thank you forever and forever, praising your greatness from generation to generation 

Like it or not, lament is a part of life. A good part, actually, because lament gives us words for the hard times. And let’s be honest here — Advent and Christmas are hard times for lots of us.

Advent makes room for lament. You’ll find it in many of the daily readings and you surely find it in the music of Advent — almost all of which is written in a minor key. Waiting is hard work, yet it is essential work, too. And that’s why the church designed these specific seasons of Advent and Lent, each of them leading up to our two great feasts, Christmas and Easter. Because while we’re waiting, we need space for the sad songs. When we feast, then we can break out the major key and the ‘alleluia.’

And when we are in the midst of a lament, it is critically important to remember, as the psalmist has done here, that God is tenderhearted. Yes, we get pictures of an angry, vengeful God in scripture. But usually, those pictures are the interpretive work of the authors of that particular portion of scripture. The underlying truth, the one we build our hope and our faith on is this one: God is for us. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: God is for us and by necessity, that means that tenderheartedness takes the lead. 

Thank you for that tender heart, O God of the universe. Thank you that despite all that we mess up, you are available to us, you walk with us, you encourage and comfort us, and always, always — you love us.