Ezekiel 36:24-28, NRSV

I will take you from the nations, and gather you from all the countries, and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances. Then you shall live in the land that I gave to your ancestors; and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.

I kind of look for hearts. Yeah, it’s a weird little thing of mine. I love them. And on our recent vacation, I was watching some birds as they took baths in a small birdbath nearby and right next to me was this vine. And lo and behold, if I didn’t spy a small heart-shaped hole, left there by some local insect. Can you find it in the picture?

When I add a heart-shaped rock to my collection, or use a stick to make a heart in the sand, or cut a heart out of colored paper to give to one of my grandgirls, I think of this verse.

A new heart. And not a heavenly heart, either. A heart of flesh. A soft heart, a real heart, a love-filled heart. That’s the business God is in, friends. Making us as beautifully human as possible. TRULY human. Looking more and more like Jesus.

Thank you for this promise, O Lord. For the beauty of your transforming work in us and through us. Remind us that our hearts are designed to be soft and tender, not hard and impregnable. As we move closer to that stable, help us to open our hearts, to take a risk here or there, a risk on love.

Acts 11:19-26, NLT 

Meanwhile, the believers who fled from Jerusalem during the persecution after Stephen’s death traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, scattering the Good News, but only to Jews. However, some of the believers who went to Antioch from Cyprus and Cyrene also gave their message about the Lord Jesus to some Greeks. And the Lord honored this effort so that large numbers of these Gentiles became believers.

When the church at Jerusalem heard what had happened, they sent Barnabas to Antioch to help the new converts. When he arrived and saw the wonderful things God was doing, he was filled with excitement and joy, and encouraged the believers to stay close to the Lord, whatever the cost. Barnabas was a kindly person, full of the Holy Spirit and strong in faith. As a result, large numbers of people were added to the Lord.

Then Barnabas went on to Tarsus to hunt for Paul. When he found him, he brought him back to Antioch; and both of them stayed there for a full year teaching the many new converts. (It was there at Antioch that the believers were first called “Christians.”)

This is the story of how we became Christ-followers. Without that visit to Antioch, without the story-telling to the Greeks there, the church as we know it would not exist. 

It just came out, you know? These excited new Jewish followers carried the tale back home after all the festival hubbub in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus’ death and resurrection. And they could.not.keep.quiet.

“And the Lord honored their efforts. . . ” How? Maybe by sending them Barnabas. Barnabas the encourager, who got so jazzed by what he found that he rejoiced the news all the way back to the head honchos in the big J. But you know something? Jerusalem is NOT where he went: he went to Tarsus.

Tarsus? Why??

To find a guy named Paul. A former persecutor of the infant church named Saul was now the number one convert, with a brand-spankin’ new name. And together, Paul and Barnabas went back to Antioch to bring kindness, encouragement and instruction.

It’s probably not the most politically correct thing to admit, but I’ve never had a great desire to resemble Paul. But Barnabas? Oh, yeah. I’d L O V E to look a lot like him.

Lord, we give you thanks for the enthusiasm of the early church! For their heartfelt zeal for you and for their faithfulness in telling the story to everyone they met. And we thank you for both Barnabas and Paul, who took those new converts to the next step in their own discipleship. What a great gift to the church then — and now. Thank you!

Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13, The Message

 God, you smiled on your good earth!
    You brought good times back to Jacob!
You lifted the cloud of guilt from your people,
    you put their sins far out of sight.
You took back your sin-provoked threats,
    you cooled your hot, righteous anger.

I can’t wait to hear what he’ll say.
    God’s about to pronounce his people well,
The holy people he loves so much,
    so they’ll never again live like fools.
See how close his salvation is to those who fear him?
    Our country is home base for Glory!

Love and Truth meet in the street,
    Right Living and Whole Living embrace and kiss!
Truth sprouts green from the ground,
    Right Living pours down from the skies!
Oh yes! God gives Goodness and Beauty;
    our land responds with Bounty and Blessing.
Right Living strides out before him,
    and clears a path for his passage.

Isn’t this passage a lovely breath of fresh air after the last several days of lament? Another reason I love the Word — it’s rich with texture and variety, with words that meet us wherever we happen to be at any given moment.

The more traditional translations of this passage usually say something like, “Righteousness and peace kiss each other,” words which I love. But I was struck by Peterson’s paraphrase of this entire selection from the psalms. He chooses the word ‘truth’ over the word ‘faithfulness,’ in the section right after the kissing bit. ‘Faithfulness’ is the English word used in many other versions of this psalm.

I like that choice. In fact, I think the two words are more synonymous than we might realize. 

Think about it. We are called to be who we are in Jesus — our truest selves. And when we are our truest, best selves, we will look more and more like Jesus, who is truth, and who is faithful.

And I love the picture of that faithful truth growing like a wild, green thing, straight out of the dust from which we came! 

Thank you, Jesus, for showing us truth, for being truth. And thank you for modeling the faithfulness of our God and inviting us to live a life that looks like yours, rich with love and laughter and self-giving. 

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.

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.