We rejoice, for the Light of the World has come to darkness. Jesus Christ is the Light that no darkness can overcome. Advent is a season of preparation as God’s people watch and wait for Christ. We will be pondering the songs found in the gospel of Luke. The song of an old priest named Zechariah. Mary, the pregnant teenager. And angels come to shepherds in the countryside. We ponder these songs and rejoice.
Invocation
Make the sign of the cross, and say,
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Invitation Prayer
Jesus Christ is the Light of the world. The light no darkness can overcome.
Jesus, open our eyes to your light and our ears to your words of hope. Come, O long-expected Jesus. Our hope is in you. Amen.
Word: Luke 1:64-66
“And immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed, and he spoke, blessing God. And fear came on all their neighbors. And all these things were talked about
through all the hill country of Judea, and all who heard them laid them up in their hearts, saying, ‘What then will this child be?’”
Meditation: The Time Between
Today’s meditation is written by Megan Roegner.
Late autumn is my favorite season. There’s a pause, like a cloud of breath hanging in the cold air. I don’t mind that the leaves are brown or the way they feel and sound, dry and whispery, under my feet. I like the way the bare branches reach up to the gray sky like beseeching hands. Late autumn is a time of quiet, of slipping into dormancy, of waiting.
But Advent is a time of waking up. And the contrast between its growing anticipation and the stillness of the natural world leads to an exquisite tension: a waiting to exhale, the moment before something incredible happens.
In the fifth century B.C., after hundreds of years drenched in prophecy, Malachi foretells a great messenger, another Elijah. Then silence. Empires rise and fall, languages change, culture shifts. Four hundred years pass without a prophet’s voice.
And then, a crying out in the wilderness shatters the silence.
Even before that voice, there are others, tremors of awakening.
An angel tells an aging priest that his barren wife will have a son, a son who will be “great before the Lord.” For his initial doubt, Zechariah, too, must wait in silence. Surely this period of quiet during the nine months of Elizabeth’s pregnancy heightens the anticipation of the news he has to share.
When Elizabeth is six months pregnant, the sound of her cousin Mary’s greeting causes her baby to leap for joy, and she, too, knows that she is watching a miracle unfold.
The baby is born, and Zechariah’s mouth is opened and his tongue is loosed. The words he speaks spark “fear” among his neighbors, perhaps the stomach drop of anxiety and excitement caused by change. The neighbors, as well, find their voices— “all these things were talked about through all the hill country of Judea, and all who heard them laid them up in their hearts, saying, ‘What then will this child be? For the hand of the Lord was with him.’”
In great stories, names are rarely an accident. In this story, the angel insists that Zechariah and Elizabeth name their son John, Yochanan, which means “the Lord has shown favor.” Perhaps Zechariah himself was named after the Old Testament prophet who wrote the words
Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!
Behold, your king is coming to you;
righteous and having salvation is he,
humble and mounted on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey. (Zechariah 9:9)
Along with prophecies of the Messiah, the Book of Zechariah is filled with apocalyptic imagery. And perhaps this can be a reminder to us that Advent isn’t just about a season of awakening thousands of years ago, but the tension that we live in today, the time between the first and the second coming.
Actively waiting, poised in anticipation, hearts and mouths still full of the good news from two millennia ago, we hold our breath for the future.
Father, show us how both to wait and to wake up. Help us learn to listen and also find the right words to speak. Amen.
Prayer for Rest
· For physical, mental, and emotional health.
· For times of joy, delight, and leisure.
· For a Sabbath day free from work, tasks, and stress.
· For a holy time of worship.
Closing Prayer
Lord God, Heavenly Father, in this weary world, the valley of the shadow of death, grant me rest in your illuminating love and eternal life. Amen!