December 16/Third Sunday of Advent The LORD, your God, is in your midst; he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love; he will exult over you with loud singing as on a day of festival.~ Zephaniah 3.17 There have been times along the way when I simply could not locate my connection to God. Many…
Category: Keeping Advent
Keeping Advent 14: Vineyard Vine
December 15/Second Saturday of Advent Once again, O LORD of hosts, look down from heaven, and see; Take care of this vine, and protect what your right hand has planted. ~ Psalm 80.15-16 Vineyard Vine The act of planting a garden, like the act of getting married, is the easier part: it’s the small daily acts of caring over the…
Keeping Advent 13: Can’t Get No Satisfaction
December 14/Second Friday of Advent Jesus said to the crowds, “To what will I compare this generation?” It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another, ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn.’” ~ Matthew 11.16-17 Can’t Get No Satisfaction Anyone who has spent time…
Keeping Advent 12: The X-Games
December 13/Second Thursday of Advent From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force. ~ Matthew 11.12 The X-Games If I had ever managed to find time to take the divinity school course on “Troubling New Testament Texts,” I would have lobbied to include today’s Gospel…
Keeping Advent 11: Leaps and Bounds
December 12/Second Wednesday of Advent When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. ~ Luke 1.41 Leaps and Bounds I will never forget the ten-week ultrasound for my fourth child (now a strapping high school senior). As Fred, the technician, zeroed in on the tiny image, I saw the…
Keeping Advent 10: Lost
December 11/Second Tuesday of Advent If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine in the hills and go in search of the stray? ~ Matthew 18.12 In our day and age of cost-benefit analysis, it is not a foregone conclusion that each of us would go after that one stray. …
Keeping Advent 9: Undaunted
December 10/Second Monday of Advent Just then some men came, carrying a paralyzed man on a bed. They were trying to bring him in and lay him before Jesus; but finding no way to bring him in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down with his bed through the tiles into the middle…
Keeping Advent 7: Question Time
December 8/First Saturday of Advent Feast of the Immaculate Conception The LORD God called to the man and asked him, “Where are you?” Then he asked, “Who told you that you were naked?” The LORD God then asked the woman, “What is this you have done?” ~ Gen 3.9, 11, 13 The British Parliament’s venerable custom (and increasingly unruly practice)…
Keeping Advent 6: Inquiring Minds
December 7/First Friday of Advent One thing I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: to live in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to inquire in his temple. ~ Psalm 27.4 This beautiful verse from Psalm 27 floats into my mind’s eye every Sunday when I…
Keeping Advent 5: Passing the Peace
December 6/First Thursday of Advent Those of steadfast mind you keep in peace, in peace because in you they trust. ~ Isaiah 26.3 One of the prayers that most fed my soul as I was growing up in the Episcopal Church — a prayer that still blankets me with comfort — is the post-Communion blessing. “The peace of God, which…