Advent Devotional 2022

CONSIDER THIS

The roots of Jesus run deep into the soil of his faith-family story—and they also run side to side with those who were his contemporaries and Advent partners. For Jesus, one must consider what would have happened if his relative, John, had not been born onto the scene at the same time. As we look at the Advent, we meet John first leaping in the womb of his mother, Elizabeth, delighted from before either child was born in all that God was about to do (Luke 1:41–44).

Partnership is an essential part of Christlike living in the world. Banded discipleship points us to a way of becoming God’s love to one another, and God’s love to the world, that lifts us out of more functional Christian paradigms of church and invites us into an intimately relational paradigm of deep community. (For more about banded discipleship, see discipleshipbands.com.) John was a partner with Jesus, and with the Trinity, in seeing the Advent plan of salvation through. Coming into the world a few months before Jesus, as far as we can tell from the Scriptures, John was a forerunner of Christ in many ways. He had a part to play in calling the nation to repentance, and his ministry was in full motion before Jesus began his. John the Baptist was the way maker; Jesus was the Way.

Just as John laid down his life to see Jesus fulfill his ministry, so too Jesus laid down his life to see us come into the fullness of intimacy with God that the Father so desired. We see John faithfully doing his work, even to the point of facing death, and Jesus then doing the same—moving toward a death that would mean the rescue of humanity.

In Advent, we must pause to consider how Jesus prepared the way for you and I to come to know him as the Way that leads to life (Ps. 16:11). The Incarnation is a celebration of intervention, of the day when the Father gave his very best to see us become our very best before him. Jesus is God’s very best, given to the world. He not only taught the way to the Father; he was the Way, the Truth, and the Life—and still is.

Christmas, like Easter, is not a static event. It is a dynamic interplay of God’s continued work in the creation to restore it to himself, restoring his image-bearers to communion with himself and one another to attend to redemptive work. Jesus continues to make a way in you, your home, your church, and your city to come back to him from the exile of the heart we all are so easily given to. In this, Jesus, like John, prepares a way for us to return, again and again, to our first love. Made for love, Jesus is the Way to its full, and unending experience for you, for me, and for those in your community.

THE PRAYER

Jesus, the Way, you continually invite me to follow paths that lead to you, to wholeness, and to community, ultimately leading to the Father’s heart. If you don’t cease your constant welcoming of us, we won’t cease our continual return when we wander. We choose you, the Way that leads to life; make us a way-maker for those who are yet to return, by your Spirit. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

THE QUESTIONS

• Do you know of someone who needs some help right now to find their way to, or back to, Christ?
• What one thing could you do to help remove the barriers they believe are between them and God, to support the Spirit’s process of wooing them home?

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

Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. But the angel said to him: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John. . . . He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” Luke 1:11–13, 16–17

CONSIDER THIS

Advent is a time for families. And it is through families—the family of God and faithful natural families—that God works.

In the beginning of our Advent journey exploring the roots of Jesus, we considered that we each come from someone (family lines), somewhere (locations), and something (stories). When we meet Jesus, and we join him on the path to the awakened life, there is a connecting of threads that goes on, often unseen, in the background.

We become a part of the family of God, a fellowship of like-minded and like-hearted believers whose goal and aim is to glorify God in the time we are given on earth. We are swept up into a plan for the world that is so much greater than our own, and is better than any adventure we could dream up for ourselves.

Elizabeth and Zechariah were swept up into the Advent story, after spending most of their lives going about their normal day-to-day as a Hebrew family. A Levitical priest, Zechariah, encounters an angel while at the altar of incense in the temple. His wife, Elizabeth, a relative of Mary, is about to become pregnant with John (the Baptist), who will “go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah . . . to make ready a people prepared for the Lord” (Luke 1:17).

With the nation of Israel under the thumb of the Romans, the idea that their son was about to be used by God to shake up both the faithful and the faithless to awaken to God was most probably a wonderful prospect. Some parents want their children to grow up to be contributing members of society. Elizabeth and Zechariah were probably quite happy to raise a son whose zeal for the Lord would press the buttons of the unruly hearts of their people.

When Jesus opens a heart to receive him, and to embrace the fullness of the gospel, his intent is never to stop there. He plans to use anyone in one’s natural family who will come along, and, if not, the family of God given to us to encourage us in our faith. There is always a network of those impacted, who get swept up in what the Lord is doing in our midst.

The Advent project was an extended family affair from the beginning, and is intended to be so with us as well. Jesus involves families in the holy work of welcoming of Jesus into their hearts, homes, churches, and cities. Families become intercessory cells, prayer posses, enlisted by the Holy Spirit to partner with Christ in the breaking down of strongholds: “The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds” (2 Cor. 10:4).

The family of God was designed to work together, just as Elizabeth and Zechariah had a significant role to play in both John and Jesus coming to maturity together, ready to face the fire that would come with their mission to bring God’s love and power on earth.

John would “make ready a people prepared for the Lord” (Luke 1:17), and Jesus would fulfill the words of Luke 4:18–19: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Parenting the central figures of Advent was no easy task, and neither is carrying awakening in our hearts for our homes, churches, and cities. But, by the power of the Holy Spirit at work within us, he will see it accomplished.

THE PRAYER

Lord of your brave family, we surrender our own hearts to work with the family of God, and our own natural family as able, to see your kingdom come, your will be done, here on earth as it is being done in heaven. Show us the part we have to play, and lead us into acts of faith that open hearts to awakening. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

THE QUESTIONS

• How has the family of God become a community with which you can participate in sharing the love of God in your town or city?
• Is there something you have planned as a way of helping others for which you could stop and pray, right now, for God to move in awakening?

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

“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.”  Micah 5:2

When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written: “‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.’” Matthew 2:4-6

CONSIDER THIS

Jesus came to us not only from a people and a story; he also came to us in a place: Bethlehem, in Israel.

Big cities hold great appeal to the modern mind. The lights, the activity, the opportunities, the options, and even the anonymity provide a draw to those wanting to experience the very best that life has to offer. In a city, you can get known. In a city, you can get whatever you want, whenever you want it. In a city, you can hide away, and perhaps no one will come knocking on your door because it takes too long to get there.

But for we who grew up in small towns, we had a different experience. The lights are quaint down at the hardware store, especially at Christmas and when the “A” in the neon sign is flickering. The activities are, well, limited. The opportunities are endless, if you know someone at one of the three businesses offering a job. The options are interesting for dining; in my town there was the pizza place and the breakfast place and a few other almost-out-of-business spots, and then the diner if you were in the mood for less gourmet cuisine. And as for anonymity, it’s pretty hard to escape the fact that literally everyone in your town probably knows where you live, and could guide someone to your house without even looking up your address.

Bethlehem seems to have been the latter. At the time of Jesus’ birth, the population may have been one thousand or less (some estimates say three hundred or less). Bethlehem is the birthplace of David, the son of Jesse the Bethlehemite (1 Sam. 16:1), the root from which Jesus comes to us. The name “Bethlehem,” in Hebrew, means the “House of Bread.” Beautiful. The Bread of Life comes into the world, in a small village named the “House of Bread” on the outskirts of Jerusalem. How fitting. A small town feeds the world, like the loaves of bread in Jesus’ hands fed the masses.

In my university years, I studied for a season at an institute on a hill near Bethlehem in Israel. Through a strange series of circumstances, after taking a bus across the country to ask for my wife’s hand in marriage (it’s a long story), I ended up being lost outside of Bethlehem at 2 a.m. I had gotten off the bus at the wrong stop, and there were no more buses to be found. When I was finally pointed in the direction of the school where I was staying, I had to run across a field to get home. For a moment, I paused, looked up at the stars, and thought, Jesus was born here. My eyes welled up, and I continued running to my destination.

From the small places, the out of the way places, the places where one wonders if anything good can come out of them, comes God’s greatest deliverance of all. “Though you are small,” little town, “out of you will come a ruler, who will shepherd my people Israel” (Mic. 5:2; Matt. 2:6).

Do you ever feel small, hidden, out of the way or misunderstood? If so, count it all joy. The Lord loves to come to, and work through, the small.

THE PRAYER

Jesus, you entered the world through the small. It’s from the small places, where our best intentions crash into our daily struggle, that your glory radiates. You know how small we can feel at times, how insignificant our day-to-day lives can feel in the scope of eternity. But it is in the small things you work, and we know you will work through us. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

THE QUESTIONS

• Are there small things you are doing right now that the Lord has led you to do, but you are wondering if they are significant?
• In light of today’s daily text, how might you see them in a different light?

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

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.  Isaiah 7:14

CONSIDER THIS

Another Advent prophecy that feeds the roots of the family story of Christ is one that speaks into Christ’s coming to us in his first advent, and reflects into Christ returning to us in his second advent (or second coming). It is found in Isaiah 7:14 and carries the freight of the entire Christmas story in one, single sentence: Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.

The Lord himself is going to give a sign, according to the prophet, and that sign will be threefold in its clarity and provision: 1) a virgin will give birth, 2) the child will be a son, and 3) the child will be given the name “Immanuel.”

First, the Lord is God of the unexpected process. A virgin will have a child. That sentence doesn’t sound normal in any way. In other words, how we think a thing should happen, isn’t always the way (if ever) the Lord thinks it should happen. “‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the Lord. ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts’” (Isa. 55:8–9).

Second, the Lord is God of the human process. The child born will be a son. Unlike the sentence before it, that sentence actually sounds too normal. We seem to need more spiritual confetti and fireworks to confirm that God is present than God desires to give. Yes, there were many wonders that surrounded the birth of Jesus, but we have no indication that Jesus’ birth, in the stable with Mary and Joseph, was anything other than normal. A woman gave birth to a son. This is the Lord’s grand entrance, and sets the stage for the combined normalcy, and miraculous quality, of Jesus’ life among us.

Third, the Lord is God of the relational process. The child will be called Immanuel. In other words, there will be no distance between the covenant-making God and his beloved people. Jesus will say hello, will share meals, will walk and talk with us as anyone else would. But his name, and the meaning behind it, will make the relationships different than any other we could imagine.

Jesus’ name is Y’shua, or Joshua, which was a common Jewish boy’s name at the time. It means, “the Lord saves.” Yet Jesus’ name is infused by a powerful name unused by anyone else in the Scriptures—the name, Immanuel, “God with us.”,³ When Matthew uses the name in 1:23, he translates it for the reader to confirm the connection between the naming of Jesus and the naming prophecy in Isaiah 7. Then, at the end of his gospel, in 28:20, he confirms that Jesus, Immanuel, will be “with us” until the end of the ages.

The Father is whispering his agenda into the world by the very process we will see unfolding in Jesus’ birth. The Lord will be present with us, coming to us by an unexpected process, a very human process, and a very relational process. Here is the Advent God of the inconceivable, the conceivable, and the communal— the surprise, the normal, and the near.

In Immanuel, the Father is present to us, and says “Here I am.” In response, we say, “Here I am.” “Here I am” is one of the most powerful phrases that can be prayed by a human being; to be present to God, to be utterly attentive and wholly available, is the goal of the Christian life.In Jesus, the great I Am says to you, to me: “Here, I am.”
_______________

^3. For more on this, I commend N. T. Wright’s Matthew for Everyone, Part 1 (Westminster: John Knox Press, 2004).

THE PRAYER

Immanuel, we are entering a day where knowing you are with us is as important as it will ever be. Here we are to respond to your “Here I am”; lead us in your ways as we encourage others to experience the nearness of your presence. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

THE QUESTIONS

• In what situations do you most sense the Lord’s name—Immanuel, God with us—being true to your relationship with him? In worship? In prayer?
• In this Christian New Year, how can you cultivate being present to Jesus as he is present to you?

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