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.

1 Corinthians 1:3-9, NRSV

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind—just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you— so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

I do believe that these highlighted words are at the heart of our story: GOD IS FAITHFUL.

When things are going well for us, that statement rings true and give us glorious cause for hallelujah and amen. When things are not going well, it’s a whole lot harder to hold onto and celebrate that truth.

And yet, that is precisely when we need it the most. When the doctor’s diagnosis is terrifying, when the kids are all sick and the house is a mess, when your spouse feels like a stranger, when you are buried in a pit of loneliness and sadness — believing that God is faithful can be a lifeline.

And the story of Christmas, the meaning of Advent, gives powerful testimony to that faithfulness. For me that is underscored by the simple beauty of the details: a young mother, a strange angelic visit, shepherds in the field, a sudden, lonely birth story — all of it seems cattywampus to what we might expect a story of God’s faithfulness to be .

And yet. . . aren’t those lovely words? And yet. . . the very smallness and humility of the story sings to me somehow. It sings of a God who is in it for the long haul, a God who longs to know us from the inside out. . . and so God becomes ‘inside out.’ For us.

Oh, thank you, Jesus, for showing me the heart of the Creator. The Creator, who is FOR US, and wishes to know us so well and to love us so madly, that bearing flesh and enduring hardship became necessary parts of the story. Help me to hang onto the truth of your faithfulness, even when I feel alone and frightened. Thank you.