Second Advent Bonus Day

Advent, 2017

Wednesday, December 27, 2017

The number of days of Advent is different from year to year. In 2008, there were twenty-six days in the season. This year there were only twenty-three days. So the following few “bonus” days for 2017 will take us almost to the end of the year. Enjoy these extra devotions, keeping in mind that Christmas for the author didn’t happen until the next to the last entry.

He was despised and rejected my mankind, a man of suffering and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

Isaiah 53:3

That I might know him, and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings . . . .

Philippians 3:10

The verses above from Isaiah and Philippians create a painful picture. Jesus, when he grew to manhood and even before the cross, knew sadness, loneliness, and rejection. He loved Israel, but she didn’t return his love. He poured himself into teaching his disciples so that they would be prepared to do the work of the Kingdom after he was gone, and they spent the last hours with him arguing about who would be first in that Kingdom. He didn’t argue with the authorities when they wrongfully accused him, and they beat him anyway. He fed them, healed them, delivered them from demons, held their children, ate with them, cried with them. But it was never enough. He asked several of his closest friends to watch with him, just before he died, but they were lazy and went to sleep.

I would criticize them, but I know that I am just like they were – so engrossed in my own ideas of what he is like that I often miss who he really is! I’ve sought to know him in his resurrected power, but he wants us to know something of his pain, his concern for his dying world. He wants us to care about those around us, to let him in us help the lonely, the sick, the frightened.

We buy a lot of presents at Christmas, but it seems that God is the one who really does the giving. We buy “stuff” and wrap it up in bright paper and ribbon. He gives himself, wrapped in a baby. Ben Johnson, a Methodist minister I met years ago, told me that a good way to live the Christian life is to give as much of ourselves as we can to as much of Jesus as we understand – today. That, of course, means that tomorrow we will understand more – of ourselves and of him – so we’ll have to make that commitment daily for as long as we live. God’s gift to us keeps on giving. If we make that kind of commitment, our gift to him would keep us giving, too.

Father, another Christmas is almost here. Help us not to criticize those who treated you poorly when you walked here on earth. Help us, instead to be sure that we do not do the same cruel things they did. Remind us that you still ask us to spend time with you, to watch and pray with you, to let you be a vital part of our lives. Amen.

The Light of the World
prepared for Homosassa United Methodist Church, 2008,
by Patience Nave, Christian Education Coordinator.