Denise Gallichio

CONSIDER THIS

Sarah laughed, and I get it. What she heard the Lord say was pure,unadulterated, funny. I’ve heard the Lord speak things to me that I thought were funny at the time. God has a knack for the practical joke that’s not actually a joke, for stand-up comedy that is a call to stand up and has comedic yet powerful timing and results.

Jesus comes from a long line of people who laugh. He comes from a people who praise loudly, and who lament the same; from a people who laugh hard and who cry even harder. More than this, Jesus comes from a people who are honest to God, who pull no punches, and who wrestle with him until their hip is out of joint and they have received his blessing.

Before Sarah laughed in Genesis 18:9–15, Abraham fell down on his face and laughed first in 17:17. We can laugh in bewilderment and thanks, or we can laugh in derision and mockery. We’ll never know exactly how Sarah laughed or Abraham laughed, but it seems the Lord was not offended by it. They were not rebuked; they just had to be honest about how they really felt.

At the Advent of the Incarnate One, we can only imagine the shepherds laughing with joy after the angels make their announcement. We can almost hear Mary and Joseph laugh in the manger, that smiling laugh so common to a mother and father when they first hold a newborn in their arms. And as far as we know, Jesus may have laughed at his own jokes and even, perhaps, the jokes of others (sometimes laughing at another’s joke is an act of godly compassion, as we all know!).

Would it honor the Lord for you to laugh with joy, with thanks, with others this Advent season? The Lord of Laughter may lead you to it; his desire being that you throw off the heavy weights of the last year and delight in just how faithful he has shown himself to be.

Laughter is not only the best medicine; sometimes it is also the best prayer.

THE PRAYER

Lord of Laughter, we would like to experience delight again in all you are doing in us and around us. Where the spirit of heaviness has us bound, let the oil of joy (Isa. 61:3) lift it off of us as we bless you for the precious gifts you are giving us in this new season of delight. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

THE QUESTIONS

• How long has it been since you laughed, really hard, with friends, family, or before God?

• What could you do to put your heart in such a posture as to be willing to express joy in a new and unbridled way as the Christian New Year begins?

Roots: Advent and the Family Story of Jesus by Dan Wilt

The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.” “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”  Genesis 12:1–3

CONSIDER THIS

The day you came into this world you had no name that came along with you. You and I were fresh from heaven, fresh from the hidden place of our nurture, brought into the wide-open world. We were an idea, a masterpiece, in the heart of God. We were born, we looked around, we took it all in (as far as we could see), and our little minds began to process all the information coming our way.

You were a person, with a set of genetics already in motion like billions of tiny gears within your system, processing the beautiful world before you. But you were, as far as human beings are concerned, nameless. The name given to you may have only been spoken before this moment in hushed tones by parents or family members, and perhaps you came into the world with just a few select individuals knowing your name. But the truth is, it’s still the name they chose for you. We can trust in the sovereignty of God that our given names have come to us by some direction of divine care.

But there is a name that God has for you and for me, known to him and to be known fully by us one day.2 The process of life is to discover God’s name for you, for me, and for that identity to emerge more and more beautifully until the day we see him face-to-face!

Abram had a name. Then, at a key point in his journey, God changed it. He went from “exalted father” to “father of a multitude.” Abram could embrace being an exalted father. He had some evidence that he was a highly honored father in his life. But “father of a multitude”? That took some faith to swallow. That name came from God. Eventually, Abraham must have gone from saying his new name with a question mark every time he looked in the mirror at his aging face, to saying his new name with a bold confidence that can only come from a wild faith in an untameable God.

Jesus, like Abraham, lived into the name the Father gave him. Y’shua, “The Lord Saves,” was what he would hear every time his mother called him for dinner. Hebrew is a verb-based language, and the action of the Lord “saving” would become the action that would mark every aspect of Jesus’ life. Emerging victorious from the grave, Jesus, like the Father, names us with names that feel beyond our scope of understanding. To Jesus, we are “Beloved,” and “Body,” and “Saints,” and so much more. To Jesus, you are “Loved,” “Friend,” “Blessed,” “Redeemed,” “Strong,” “Free,” and so much more.

The Lord who comes to us all in Advent is coming to you to affirm your name, known to him. Live into it by living into some of thenames listed. As you do, you’ll become more fully the one Jesus names his very own.

THE PRAYER

Naming God, who calls things that are not as though they are, and who calls us according to who you know us to be, show us who we are in your sight. Open our hearts to receive your love, and your affirmation, that we may be free to become a sign of your great presence in the world. Our names are in your hands, and we are ready for you to call us to your vision of greatness. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

THE QUESTIONS

• Have you ever thought about the fact that God has a name for you that is written on his heart, and that he is calling you to fulfill? What characteristics about you do you think are expressed in God’s hidden name for you?

Roots: Advent and the Family Story of Jesus by Dan Wilt

So the Lord said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.  Genesis 6:7–8

CONSIDER THIS

Noah is one of the most fascinating characters we find in the extended family of Jesus. Noah walks a journey with his family that is remarkable both in its radiant faithfulness and its inescapable difficulty. When we think of Noah, we think of obedience. With just a dream and a schematic from God, Noah builds a massive boat that will float the animals of the world to safety as the land is reclaimed by an ocean of water—and reborn.

God’s favor on Noah was a favor not built on talent, skill, or his parenting accomplishments. God’s favor on Noah’s life was built on Noah’s steadfast commitment to see a great rescue through to the end. And that he did. The stories around that deliverance, written and unwritten, are every bit as important as the end result. But we know that God’s goal was accomplished. An ark was built. Humanity and the created order of animals were saved. The rain came down, the waters rose, and Noah’s ark was lifted toward heaven on the very floods of the world’s judgment.

When Jesus entered the scene on that starry night in Bethlehem a few millennia ago, he did so as God’s great spiritual ark, his very life and teaching designed to carry us to safety—into the harbor of the heart of the Father. And what do we see in Jesus’ life that we see in Noah’s life?

Obedience. Raw, Creator-trusting, crowd-defying, life-saving obedience.

Jesus was born, like us, not to do his own will, nor to see his own vision or purpose or meaning fulfilled and accomplished. Jesus was born to do the will of his Father, to move through the world as a sign that God speaks and guides the willing spirit that is humbly open to serving others.

From the manger where Mary and Joseph’s obedience was put on display for all the world, Jesus would go on to learn the fullness of obedience through “what he suffered” (Heb. 5:8). So it is with us. We all have models of obedience in our lives, toward which we may look and remember each and every day. It is in the moments we face the choice between God’s will being accomplished or our own—as Jesus experienced in the garden of Gethsemane—that our “your will be done” prayer leads us toward full maturity as a disciple of our Master.

Jesus, like Noah before him, chose obedience, and made himself a servant (Phil. 2:6–7). This Advent, following in their footsteps, so can we.

THE PRAYER

Obedient Lord, who stepped onto the soil of the human experience with love in your heart and a willing spirit, make us like you. In all the moments this season when we are faced with the choice to do our own will or yours, let us choose yours. In Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.

THE QUESTIONS

• Was there a time this past year when you faced just such a moment of obedience?
• Reading again about Noah’s example, and considering Mary, Joseph, and Jesus leading by that same example, is there a situation impacting your life at the present in which you are beginning to sense what the Father’s will is and the part you have to play? How will you respond?

Roots: Advent and the Family Story of Jesus by Dan Wilt

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”  Genesis 3:8–9

CONSIDER THIS

The roots of Jesus, and for all of us, are watered by Eden’s rain and fed by Eden’s sunshine. We began in the presence of God, without fear, without rebellion, without shame, and without hatred.

Then, the first expressions of humankind, adam (meaning “ground” or “humankind”), used their will to make a choice that cut us off at the source, from the source, of our meaning. In that moment, as the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was bitten into, bitten through—we became lost.

Lost. Lost is a term of meaning, of inner orientation, as well as being a term of location. When we are lost in our meaning, in orientation, we have lost our sense of purpose, our reference points, our context. In the garden, we lost our context—that we are all majestic creatures, rivaling anything in the celestial wonderland we call our universe, loved by the Creator who made us. We lost meaning. We welcomed in the chaos from which the world was formed, and it took residence in our disrupted, discontented hearts.

The Lord God called to the dust, to the ground, to the humans from the humus, “Where are you?” Our existential crisis, born from our sense of spiritual meaninglessness, had spun us around and left us wandering in the wasteland of our untamed desires.

When Jesus came into the world, he came as the answer to the Creator’s question in the garden.

“Where are you?”

“Here, Father” said Jesus, “Here we are, your humanity. Bring us back from exile; take us home.”

Jesus then became our Bridge and our Guide home, as one of us, and as the Lord of us, cutting paths through the thick weeds of pride and unforgiveness and self-hatred and self-sufficiency growing wild in our hearts. On the clear-cut ground our Leader has made before us, we learn to walk. Pulled to the left and the right again and again, “prone to wander,” Lord, we feel it, “prone to leave the God” we love (from the hymn, “Come, Thou Fount”), Jesus comes to us this Advent to keep us on the path to life (Ps. 16:11).

There is no other way not to be lost—no other way than to be found by Jesus—and guided safely home.

THE PRAYER

Jesus, the Way to Life, you are here with us right now as we sit in your presence and lift our hands to you for guidance. We don’t know the way home on our own; if you say “Where are you?” the best we can say in return is, “Here, Lord; find us, and take us home.” Jesus, take us home. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

THE QUESTIONS

• We all wander in seasons of our lives. Can you think of a time in the past year when you were on the clear-cut path of life, but found yourself attracted back into the weeds once again? What reoriented you, reminded you, to stay on the path of life?

Roots: Advent and the Family Story of Jesus by Dan Wilt