““Come now, and let us reason together,”
Says the LORD,
“Though your sins are like scarlet,
They shall be as white as snow;
Though they are red like crimson,
They shall be as wool.”
‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭1:18‬ ‭(NKJV‬‬)

Sometimes, when I am blogging regularly, I find myself a little wordless. It’s an odd feeling – having nothing in particular to share through writing. 

When that happens I often go to Pinterest and search for an image that I might post in place of words. 

Below is what I found in just such a search tonite. It seemed to speak more powerfully and more simply about the peace we find in Jesus than anything I could write. 

So tonite, dear friends and faithful readers, I leave you with this:

Surely God is my salvation;
I will trust and not be afraid.
The Lord, the Lord himself, is my strength and my defense;
he has become my salvation.

Isaiah 12:2 (NIV)

 

God himself became our salvation. God himself became human – fully God, yet fully human – when Jesus was born. These words, this fact, brings me such deep peace that I can barely begin to describe it – and I use words for a living, I communicate for a living.

But there is a peace that passes understanding and that’s what I’m talking about here. And it’s ok if words fail me. Because my heart, my spirit, knows this peace.

This peace has seen me through many troubling times. It has come to me in the moments of my greatest despair. It has come to me in moments when I was so afraid I thought my heart might beat right out of my chest. It has seen me through the good days and the very, very bad. And everything in between.

There’s a movie I love that starts with these words, “When ever I start to feel gloomy about the state of the world, I think of the arrival gate at Heathrow Airport…” The narrator goes on to describe that love is found as friends and family meet at the arrival gate.

Well, friends, whenever I start to feel gloomy about the state of the world, I turn to words written down thousands of years ago…I read what those words say about my salvation, and the one who bought it with his death and Resurrection. And I find peace.

May these words speak to you throughout Advent – may you hear the words about Jesus and may you come to know him better and may you find peace. For he is our salvation.

“How beautiful upon the mountains
Are the feet of him who brings good news,
Who proclaims peace,
Who brings glad tidings of good things,
Who proclaims salvation,
Who says to Zion, “Your God reigns!””
‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭52:7‬ ‭(NKJV‬‬)

Today is the Second Sunday of Advent – the Advent Sunday of Peace. Our journey toward the manger continues, our time of waiting  abides. 

Each Sunday of this season reveals something to us about the nature of God. This week we focus on God as our Peace. 

In a world of brokenness and violence, God comes to bring good news, to proclaim peace. Perhaps it is no surprise that God does this by coming to us as a baby. There is something about holding a newborn that just gives one a sense of quiet serenity. And nobody, but nobody, sleeps as peacefully as a baby (when they DO sleep!). They are without the weight that older people carry with us. They do not worry, they do not overthink. 

A sleeping infant embodies peace in a way you and I cannot seem to do. 

God comes as the embodiment of peace, the Christ child, to proclaim his message of peace to all of humanity. 

This Advent, may you know peace – proclaimed by And embodied by Jesus. May you understand that God is the God of Peace and may you find ways to live out peace each and every day. 

The voice of one crying in the wilderness:
“Prepare the way of the LORD;
Make straight in the desert
A highway for our God.
Every valley shall be exalted
And every mountain and hill brought low;
The crooked places shall be made straight
And the rough places smooth;
The glory of the LORD shall be revealed,
And all flesh shall see it together;
For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”
‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭40:3-5‬ ‭(NKJV)‬‬

When Mary and Joseph made their way to Bethlehem on that first of Christmases, you can bet that the rough places had not been smoothed out for them. They were unknown – just two more people making their way to their ancestral hometown, so that they could be counted in the cencus. 

Just two poor teenagers, slowly making their way – Joseph on foot and Mary on a lowly donkey. Over the rough desert terrain, without a highway to guide them or to make their travel straight. 

I wonder how much they understood about all that was happening in them and through them. Certainly, they’d been visited by Angelic messengers…Heaven doesn’t show up in your sleeping quarters without making an impression. I think it’s safe to say they knew God was up to something. 

But could they have imagined all that would happen? Could they have understood that this baby was the Messiah? That millions would put their trust in him and find the crooked and rough places of their lives straightened out and made smooth?

I don’t know. But I wonder. 

This Advent, may you be captured by wonder. May you contemplate the questions that this Holy birth produces. May you find that in this contemplation a few of your own crooked  places begin to straighten, and your rough places become smooth. For this is the hope we have in Jesus.  

“Of the greatness of his government and peace
there will be no end.
He will reign on David’s throne
and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it
with justice and righteousness
from that time on and forever.
The zeal of the Lord Almighty
will accomplish this.”
‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭9:7‬ ‭(NIV‬)

The prophecies about the baby aren’t just rooted in history. I mean, they are – the Bible is specific about a time and a place in which the baby would be born. 

But the Bible is also pretty specific that this would be no ordinary child. That he would grow to be no ordinary leader. His reign would last forever. There would be no end to his government and the peace it would bring. 

This wasn’t just hope for a season or for a generation or for a period of time. This hope is forever. 

And this hope is shared by millions of people. In different times, different places. In the hugest courts of the day and in the lowliest slums. 

This hope is Jesus – God with us. God among us. God who lays himself down to be our hope. Forever. 

This Advent, may you know something of the hope that never ends, and may it make your days merry and bright. 

…The government will rest on his shoulders.
And he will be called:
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father,
Prince of Peace.”
‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭9:6b‬ ‭ (NLT)‬‬

There’s just something about these titles: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. I can’t help but hear them in my mind as set to music by Handel, every time I read them on the page. 

And my heart just swells – with hope. This is who I place my hope in: One whose every name brings me new reasons for hope. 

One who commands grandiose titles, and yet chose to be born a baby. 

One who is bigger than history, outside of time, vast, limitless – yet chose to put on frail human flesh. 

One who is immortal, and yet chose to become mortal and then to submit himself to death. Even death on a cross. 

For you. For me. 

This is where our hope belongs. 

This Advent, may you be awed by His titles and touched by his humanity. May you put your hope squarely where it belongs. May you know that there’s just something about that name. 

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 ‭NIV‬‬

One of the things I love about the Bible, is how often it’s the little guy, the underdog, the longshot who ends up being the hero of the story.  David wins against Goliath. A bunch of unschooled fishermen bring the Gospel to the world. The savior of the world is born as a tiny, helpless baby. 

The story of the Bible is the story of hope being found in the most unlikely places and the most unlikely people. 

So hundreds of years before the baby is born, the prophet Micah wrote about the ruler who would come from the unlikely town of Bethlehem. Small among the clans of Judah, no one would expect this backwater to be the place where the Messiah would be born. 

But that’s the thing about hope – sometimes it comes from the most surprising sources. 

This Advent may you be surprised by hope. May find it in the unlikely cry if a tiny baby born in a unimpressive little town, who would grow to become the savior of the world. 

The people walking in darkness
have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of deep darkness
a light has dawned.

Isaiah 9:2 (NIV)

There’s a song many of us who worship in Presbyterian churches love, it starts, “Hope is a star, that shines in the night – leading us on, until morning is bright.”

Because hope is like a light that shines in the darkness…it doesn’t vanquish the darkness entirely. But it shines. And it guides. And it leads us forward to a time when morning has come, and all is bright.

The days are dark at this time of year. The night comes early (4:42pm, according to my Weather Network app). We get a little starved for light. Maybe that’s what’s behind the lights we string on trees and around the edges of our houses. Maybe that’s why we light candles during the four Advent Sundays – we just NEED a little extra light in our lives at this time of year.

A lot of darkness has seemed to gather in 2016. Every once in a while it’s like our world goes through something where the darkness just seems more prevalent than it has been. As a race, we seem to experience fear, shock and despair more often as the events of the day are reported. 2016 has been one of those times. It’s dark out there, right now.

And in times of darkness, hope become even more powerful. Even more necessary.

I cling to hope – like a star shining in the night, leading us on until morning is bright. My hope is in the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. The One that the prophet was writing about when he wrote that the people in darkness have seen a great light.

This advent, may you experience that hope. May you know that hope placed in the promises of God is never disappointed. May you hold to the light that shines in the darkness. May you know that the darkness CANNOT put it out.

For a child has been born—for us!
the gift of a son—for us!
Isaiah 9:6a (MSG)

 

Today marks the beginning of the Advent Season – it is the first Sunday of Advent, the Advent Sunday of Hope. For some it might seem early for the Season to begin (my Dad refuses to let my Mom put up a Christmas tree until it is ACTUALLY December…she got her Nativity set up, though, so her decorating has begun despite my Dad’s best efforts!).

It is still November – our friends in the States have just celebrated Thanksgiving. It may seem early for a beginning. But I love the first few days of Advent. Right now it’s all anticipation – there are so many thing to look forward to, so many celebrations to be had.

As a church leader, this can be a time of year in which the pressures get to us. I have friends and colleagues who swear that the joy of the Season has been robbed by the demands and pressures of our work. And for ten years, I have worked very hard to not allow that to happen to me.

Instead, I jump in with both feet. I decorate the house BIG (two trees! Snow globes! Greenery on the banister! Red ribbons wrapping the doors!), I listening to Christmas music in my car, I indulge in the Seasonal drinks (ok, the skinny version…but still!) at Starbucks. I keep my eyes open for opportunity to bring joy to others (finding, as I always have, that is the best way to bring joy to myself).

I was touched by the Rev. Douglas Rollwage’s reminder that the child was born FOR US, during his sermon at St. Andrew’s, Brampton today. That God did all of this – Jesus’ birth, life, teaching, death, Resurrection and the salvation we find through it – FOR US.

I am convinced, that as long as I keep that message in my heart – and you keep it in yours – we will not be able to feel anything less than grateful, humble joy throughout the Season. May you (and I!) be so blessed.

“So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him.”

‭‭Matthew‬ ‭7:11‬ ‭NLT‬‬

So I am writing my final post about the Scotland tour from a McDonald’s near my folks’ summer place in Madoc. I’m writing it here because there is free wifi, I have some free time  and because I finally feel capable (mentally, emotionally) to write about it.

Our final day in Scotland was truly a gift from God. We woke up to a perfectly clear sky, golden sunshine and temperatures soaring up to 25C. We could not have asked for a better day to cruise Loch Ness, explore the ruins of Urquhart Castle and then travel through the indescribably gorgeous Glen Coe area.

My phone died about midday (I’d had the screen brightness turned up in all the sunshine, and my battery bank hadn’t charged the night before), so I don’t have pictures that I can access (yet – they are on the big camera and I’ll post some when I’m back to having regular internet access), but despite the minor technical difficulties, the beauty of Glen Coe is burned on my brain. I hope and pray that I will be able to go back some day and do a hiking tour in the area.

Loch Ness and Urquhart castle were both amazing. I have visited many ruins of old and ancient (in Israel, we learned those were two very different things!) sites in the past few years, and I never tire of them. I always say I could spend hours in those places, just letting my imagination run and enjoying the photography opportunities. I loved every second we spent at Urquhart Castle.

Our tour through Glen Coe was an unexpected blessing – our guide and driver conspired to take us through the region as a treat. And what a treat it was! Just the most unbelievably beautiful views.

After a long bus ride, we arrived at Leith where we checked into our hotel and then headed to Prezzo restaurant for our final dinner. It was hard to believe our time in Scotland had come to an end. But we celebrated by singing for the restaurant staff and patrons.

An amazing, deeply moving, and full of joy finale!