So much around us focuses on moving forward, making progress, racing ahead, a linear pull to bigger and better things. But our story, creation's story, the story of God-with-us, seems more accurately described by a spiral, swirling from familiar territory to unexplored frontier, not tossing off the old, but seeing it in ever-shifting new light, moving higher, deeper, wider, a steady unfurling through eternity. Advent calls us to recollect this journey, our story as God's people, the where we have been, the where we are, and the where we will be.
It is a season of preparation and penitence; of acknowledging darkness and deliverance; of anticipating judgment and joy. The fences we put up to guard ourselves--from promises that are too big and hurts that are too deep--shudder and begin to fall. Hope blows in, a wild wind; we realize that the love of God is a persistent squatter, camped in our backyard all along.
November 29: A New Day
Isaiah 2:1-5; Romans 13:11-14; Matthew 24:36-44
A monumental shift in geography is proclaimed, a change in the geography of our hearts as much as the Earth. We won't be able to ignore God any longer, Isaiah says, and we won't want to. We will eagerly embrace the lessons of peace; we will take up new tools for the trade.
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