Isaiah 2:2-5
There’s a day coming when the mountain of God’s House will be The Mountain—solid, towering over all mountains.
All nations will river toward it, people from all over set out for it.
They’ll say, “Come, let’s climb God’s Mountain, go to the House of the God of Jacob. He’ll show us the way he works so we can live the way we’re made.”
Zion’s the source of the revelation.
God’s Message comes from Jerusalem.
He’ll settle things fairly between nations.
He’ll make things right between many peoples.
They’ll turn their swords into shovels, their spears into hoes.
No more will nation fight nation; they won’t play war anymore.
Come, let’s live in the light of God.
As we have been doing for the past few years, this year our Sunday talks are going to be based on the Sunday readings in our meditation books*, but before we start there I want to spend a couple of minutes on the Introduction.
The theme for the daily meditations and for our Sunday discussions this year is, “Come, Lord Jesus.” The book begins by opening up this invitation and deals with the whole idea of Christian Triumphalism in just a handful of sentences.
For too many people the Coming of Jesus as Lord is an exclusionary act, shutting out any who do not explicitly claim him as Lord, and yet, Jesus makes it very clear that he comes for all. Since we insist on connecting his reign with kings and worldly powers, our faith history is filled with royal images of wealth, pomp, and subservience. – things which Jesus certainly never intended.
How we get to that point from the story of Jesus, for whose birth we are preparing – the Jesus who was born in a barn, the one who walked and lived among the poorest of the poor, the one who taught lessons, not of power and exclusion, but of love and invitation – has always been a mystery to me.
The writer of the introduction (Kenneth L. Samuel) points out that the phrase, “come, Lord Jesus,” comes from the Book of Revelation and then quotes from chapter 22 which, using Samuels’ language, “speaks of a pristine river of life that emanates from one Source and flows through the central street of a city that is illuminated. That river nourishes the roots of a tree that gives life – not to a select few, but to people from every nation and culture ... every person from every nation must eat the leaves from the same tree of life, that’s nourished by the same river of life, that emanates from the one Source of life.”
This is a time a time of darkness for many people in our national life together. Many days it feels as if fear, intolerance, and exclusion have become our new norms. In this dark time, that “river of life” referred to above, runs through our Advent world in the form of Hope, the traditional theme for the First Week of Advent.
When we begin to despair of the life of the new reign of God it is that river, in the form of Hope, which infuses us with new life, new courage, new determination to carry on with loving, with caring, with helping to build the reign of God, here and now.
To that end we are going to carry Hope with us throughout Advent season. Each week we will be actively looking for Hope in that week’s readings and lesson, in addition to each week’s own theme, be it Peace, Joy, or Love.
Hope is what we need now, God offers it to us over and over. It is up to us to look up and recognize it, in us and around us. And having found it ourselves, it is up to us to share it with others everywhere. The source of our Hope, the Child to be born again and again among us, will lead us.
* This year we are reading "Come, Lord Jesus," from the Stillspeaking Writers Group, UCC, multiple writers.
The theme for the daily meditations and for our Sunday discussions this year is, “Come, Lord Jesus.” The book begins by opening up this invitation and deals with the whole idea of Christian Triumphalism in just a handful of sentences.
For too many people the Coming of Jesus as Lord is an exclusionary act, shutting out any who do not explicitly claim him as Lord, and yet, Jesus makes it very clear that he comes for all. Since we insist on connecting his reign with kings and worldly powers, our faith history is filled with royal images of wealth, pomp, and subservience. – things which Jesus certainly never intended.
How we get to that point from the story of Jesus, for whose birth we are preparing – the Jesus who was born in a barn, the one who walked and lived among the poorest of the poor, the one who taught lessons, not of power and exclusion, but of love and invitation – has always been a mystery to me.
The writer of the introduction (Kenneth L. Samuel) points out that the phrase, “come, Lord Jesus,” comes from the Book of Revelation and then quotes from chapter 22 which, using Samuels’ language, “speaks of a pristine river of life that emanates from one Source and flows through the central street of a city that is illuminated. That river nourishes the roots of a tree that gives life – not to a select few, but to people from every nation and culture ... every person from every nation must eat the leaves from the same tree of life, that’s nourished by the same river of life, that emanates from the one Source of life.”
This is a time a time of darkness for many people in our national life together. Many days it feels as if fear, intolerance, and exclusion have become our new norms. In this dark time, that “river of life” referred to above, runs through our Advent world in the form of Hope, the traditional theme for the First Week of Advent.
When we begin to despair of the life of the new reign of God it is that river, in the form of Hope, which infuses us with new life, new courage, new determination to carry on with loving, with caring, with helping to build the reign of God, here and now.
To that end we are going to carry Hope with us throughout Advent season. Each week we will be actively looking for Hope in that week’s readings and lesson, in addition to each week’s own theme, be it Peace, Joy, or Love.
Hope is what we need now, God offers it to us over and over. It is up to us to look up and recognize it, in us and around us. And having found it ourselves, it is up to us to share it with others everywhere. The source of our Hope, the Child to be born again and again among us, will lead us.
* This year we are reading "Come, Lord Jesus," from the Stillspeaking Writers Group, UCC, multiple writers.
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