Advent 2009
I have been struck by Janis Ian's Christmas song entitled Grown up Christmas List. The reality of life chips away at our childhood dreams, not just for toys, but for a better life for ourselves, others and even for the whole world. But in her song she dares to dream as an adult, "No more lives torn apart and war that would never start", she sang. Can we do the same in the face of today's realities?
I was struck by the Ancient Prophets who discovered the redemptive love of God at work in the suffering of the Jews during exile from ,the writing of N. T. Wright. Isaiah (chap. 12) even wrote of an individual's suffering which might turn aside the anger of God, his offended love, toward compassion. The result was strength and a new song, joy even, that would be drawn from deep wells. Peace that would embrace all people as they came to know God. This is not just a pipe dream it is the hope of Israel and the prayer of everyone who looks beneath their hurt to see God's Spirit sustaining them in Christ.
My grown up Christmas wish is really a prayer that you would all know God's joy even in the difficulties of life as God clears a place in your heart to come and dwell. May God make room in your heart for the love of God to the rescue - which is Jesus' name.
Blessings, Jim
Isaiah 12 (ESV)
1 You will say in that day: “I will give thanks to you, O Lord, for though you were angry with me, your anger turned away, that you might comfort me. 2 “Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the Lord God is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation.” 3 With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. 4 And you will say in that day: “Give thanks to the Lord, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the peoples, proclaim that his name is exalted. 5 “Sing praises to the Lord, for he has done gloriously; let this be made known in all the earth. 6 Shout, and sing for joy, O inhabitant of Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.”
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