Advent
December 22, 2014
Scripture Reading: Isaiah 61:10-62:3
For as the earth brings forth its shoots,
and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up,
so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise
to spring up before all the nations. — Isaiah 61:11
Saint Augustine advised Christians to Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you. This phrase sounds to me more like something a farmer would said and not a man who spent his younger years in wealth and hedonism. In those years the closest he came to a garden was probably when he was caught stealing fruit for a snack*. The phrase is good advice. By the time he said it, he had turned his life around.
The advice does go along with the life of a farmer who works very hard at his vocation but is totally dependent upon the nurture of the earth and nature in general for a crop to result. It is an interesting commingling of faith and works. In our scripture today, Isaiah is telling a people who no longer trust in themselves and are most likely strongly questioning whether God was truly with them that just as nature causes what is sown in the earth to grow at the proper time so too will God cause righteousness/justice to become a reality for all people that indeed will be a time for praise.
Isaiah had a tough job giving people hope in a time of hopelessness. We are also called to give hope to the world. We do that every time we share the story of Jesus particularly in the way we live our faith, but if need be, in our actual word. The writers of Matthew and Luke have given us a great script from which we can start the conversation.
Prayer: Lord, I hate it when people try to cram something down my throat and I don’t want to come off like that to others. I think it just turns them off. I do love you and you have made such a difference in my life, I want to tell others but I don’t know what to say or do. Give me the right words when words are right and right actions when leading by example speaks louder than words. Amen.
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustine_of_Hippo
All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights reserved.