Advent Day 1

READ: Isaiah 48:12–17

“Listen to me, O Jacob, 

and Israel, whom I called!

I am he; I am the first,

and I am the last.

My hand laid the foundation of the earth,

and my right hand spread out the heavens;

when I call to them,

they stand forth together.

“Assemble, all of you, and listen!

Who among them has declared these things?

The Lord loves him;

he shall perform his purpose on Babylon,

and his arm shall be against the Chaldeans.

I, even I, have spoken and called him;

I have brought him, and he will prosper in his way.

Draw near to me, hear this:

from the beginning I have not spoken in secret,

from the time it came to be I have been there.”

And now the Lord God has sent me, and his Spirit.

Thus says the Lord,

your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel:

“I am the Lord your God,

who teaches you to profit,

who leads you in the way you should go.

REFLECT:

Advent is a journey of preparation. The prophet Isaiah invites you to this journey at the behest of someone greater than himself: the I Am, the first  and the last, the Creator God whose hand laid the foundation of the earth  and spread out the heavens. God does not speak in secret or stand at a distance. He has been present from the beginning of time. 

 Two hundred years before Babylon took Israel captive, God spoke these words through Isaiah. Persia’s King Cyrus would be chosen, called,  and prospered by God to release Jewish captives from Babylon for return  to Zion, fulfilling God’s purpose. Two thousand years before our day, God  sent another, greater One to redeem his people. This Redeemer would come not as a conquering hero but as an infant King. The birth of Jesus  in a Bethlehem stable under a starlit sky is the place where prophecy and  promise come together. 

This Advent journey’s destination is not to a place but to a person we are invited to know. What will you do with this invitation? As you pray, will you slow your pace and listen? Will you examine and empty  your heart of things that crowd the Savior out, preparing your heart by  preparing him room? Will you come near to the One who has come near  to you? He leads in the way you should go, one step of the journey at a  time. Will you follow him? 

And as you do, will you focus beyond this horizon to a second advent, to a day when Jesus will come again to redeem his people and begin a glorious eternity? Just as he created earth’s foundations and stretched out  the heavens, he will do so again. In re-creation glory he will bring forth the new heaven and earth, our eternal home. 

PRAY:

Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. 

(Anglican Church in North America Book of Common Prayer)