Between Sundays for Week of November 28, 2022
Matthew invites those who follow Jesus to lean into the uncertainty of our world and our lives. We don’t know what happens next, or when? We don’t know when Messiah will come.
Our ancestors in faith ascribed the title, Dayspring, to this longing for a Messiah who would come and cheer our hearts. And drawing on Hebrew scripture, they believed this Dayspring would bring the dawning of justice and disperse the gloomy clouds of night.
For the ancient poet and prophet Isaiah, the arrival of Dayspring would look like the emerging light of a new day. A new day where weapons of war would be beaten into implements for agriculture. No more swords and spears, now only plows and pruners. Dayspring would change the hearts of God’s people from war to peace.
Other ancient prophets described this new day that Dayspring would bring as one where the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing on his wings!
God’s Dayspring evokes images of peace and security, healing and health. Our ancestors imagined Messiah’s coming would dawn like the sun and break through the bitterness and gloom and despair that emerges when violence, inequity, hunger, and death rule the day. This week, Pastor Amy invites us to ask, how do YOU imagine Messiah’s coming will dawn in your life? What will God’s Dayspring look like for you?
O come, O Dayspring, come and cheer;
O Sun of justice, now draw near.
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
and death’s dark shadow put to flight.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to you, O people of God at Bethlehem.
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P.S. Would you like to reflect more deeply on the aspects of God for whom we wait? Share in conversation after worship at 10:15 in the sanctuary with a Pastor during the weeks of Advent.
P.P.S. Are you looking for a resource to guide your Advent reflection at home? We commend to you The Season of Waiting (And waiting…and waiting…) by Kate Bowler. The devotional starts on November 27 (the more traditional first Sunday of Advent) and includes a Scripture and reflection for each day that weaves together real life and ancient church traditions. It’s hope-filled and invites us into the tension of waiting for the One who was and who is and who is to come. You can download it from Kate Bowler’s website or contact the church office if you need a print a copy.
“Advent begins in the dark,” preacher Fleming Rutledge once said. In today’s message, Pastor Amy invites us to tune our eyes and hearts to be on the lookout for the signs of Dayspring – a new day – that marks Christ’s coming into our world and into our lives. If you’re looking for a resource to guide your Advent waiting, Pastor Amy references Kate Bowler’s online devotional, The Season of Waiting (and waiting… and waiting…). You can sign up online to receive the devotional.
Ponderings
“Those who believe in God can never in a way be sure of him again. Once they have seen him in the stable, they can never be sure where he will appear or to what lengths he will go or to what ludicrous depths of self-humiliation he will descend in his wild pursuit of humankind. If holiness and the awful power and majesty of God were present in this least auspicious of all events, this birth of a peasant’s child, then there is no place or time so lowly and earthbound but that holiness can be present there too.”
– Frederich Buechner, “The Face in the Sky”
