By Abby Deaton, a junior communication major at Goshen College Reprinted from Advent Devotionals No one knows the day or the hour when it will strike. For me, it was September 28, 2013, around 2 p.m. No warning. No reason. But on that day, at that hour, I developed an illness, and it has been a battle. My semester at school has panned out very differently than I had planned. My illness radically changed every aspect of my life for the past two months. No warning. No reason. There is this sense of injustice when negative events happen in our life without warning. We want reasons. We desperately seek explanations for those events because suffering without purpose seems cruel. This seems especially true during the Advent season, when we spend our time rejoicing, when we spend our time reflecting on the word of God. Tainting this traditionally blessed time just seems cruel. Three weeks ago, my illness took a turn for the worse. Three weeks ago, I had all but lost hope in ever feeling normal again. We are told that we cannot know the hour or “on what day your Lord will come.” Two weeks ago, I began to recover. Both my illness and my recovery came without warning, but I no longer believe it was without purpose. There are good friends who I would not have met. There were close friends that I would have never understood otherwise. There were changes in my friend’s life that may have never occurred. There were personal revelations I’m not sure I would have come to. We are asked to prepare for the Lord, to “be ready” for the day the Lord comes. Faith is our best preparation. Faith that God will deliver us from evil. Faith that God is always near. Faith that God has a greater plan. We may not be given any warning, but we are given faith that there is a reason. We may not know the day or the hour, but we can have faith in the outcome. Matthew 24:36-44 (NRSV)
0 Comments
By Annabeth Tucker, a senior English writing major at Goshen College Reprinted from Advent Devotionals Bananas ripen. Baby giraffes are born. Chimpanzees eat tiny, tasty bugs off each others’ backs. A flamingo dies. Water drops down from pregnant clouds, and, eventually, evaporates back up. The ocean—big and blue and full—waves and waves. Wind circulates across the earth’s surface, searching and knowing. From the mating song of a cardinal bird to the crevices and craters on our earth’s moon, God knows everything. His love is greater than we can fathom and far beyond what we deserve. Yet God freely lavishes God’s love on creation, on us. God is found in overripe fruit and awkward infant giraffes, but God is also found in us, in the miracle of ear canals and eyeballs. The awe, the wonder, the mystery of being made in God’s image is astounding. The majesty of God coming to be with us in our own form is what we anticipate to celebrate on Christmas. Have you encountered this God of the mountains, the valleys, the animals and the storms—the God of the universe? The God of it all who, in all God’s glory, still wants a personal relationship with you. Now is the time, brothers and sisters. In the midst of bellowing whales, buff ants, eroding boulders and bright stars, human beings have a place. Now is the time to open our eyes and see God all around us in creation and in our lives. He asks us to wake up from our slumber and to activate our faith. To put on the armor of light; not only this, but to put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Now is the time to be fully alive. Come, revel with me in the glorious mystery that is the beauty of creation, light of the world, the hope of God with us. Romans 13:11-14 (NRSV) By Regina Shands Stoltzfus, assistant professor of peace, justice and conflict studies at Goshen College Reprinted from Advent Devotionals I remember singing this Psalm of David, clothed in a blue robe, swaying to the beat with the rest of the choir as we entered the sanctuary on Sunday mornings. I am grateful for the rich diversity of musical styles I was able to experience growing up in my home church. The diversity of styles came about in part because we were diverse in other ways – racially and economically were probably the most evident. We also had people who lived right in the city, and people from the suburbs and surrounding rural areas. With people from so many backgrounds, it would be strange if we didn’t have a diversity of worship music. The youth choir began when I was a teenager, and we sang gospel music. Although representative of our church’s African American membership, the choir was by no means limited to that group. We loved singing gospel music together so much that, as young (and then older) adults we stayed in the choir. The name shifted from “youth” to “gospel” choir, and eventually became (and still is) an intergenerational group. That home church with the diversity of people and music is where I came to know and love God. Through worship, and especially through singing, I learned the stories of God’s people, God’s love and God’s call to be peacemakers. Here I learned to sing in the company of others, “I was glad when they said to me, let us go into the house of the Lord!” Psalm 122 (NRSV) By Jim Brenneman, president of Goshen College Reprinted from Advent Devotionals Teachers are visionaries. At their best, teachers inspire their students to dream of and work to create a better world. There is a famous scene in the movie “Dead Poets Society” (1989) when the odd out-of-bounds teacher Mr. Keating, played by Robin Williams, has all the boys stand on their chairs to get a different perspective on the world. In the process, he turns teenage boys into lovers of poetry, dreamers of a new way of living as a “band of brothers” in a community of passionate learners. I am struck by how Isaiah’s Advent vision describes God as a teacher standing on Mt. Zion. And like the Master Teacher that God is, God’s lecture is magnetic. The nations stream to class, like a river flowing upward against gravity to the highest of mountains. It’s as if God has all the nations stand on their chairs to imagine a different possible future. The instruction, the Word of the Lord, goes forth with such sway that the nation-students do the unimaginable: they beat their instruments of war into farming implements, no longer willing to go to war against one another. They leave their mountain-classroom singing what would become the great African American spiritual inspired by this Advent vision, “Gonna lay down my sword and shield, down by the riverside… I ain’t gonna study war no more!” In this war-weary world, let us stand on chairs, if we must, to catch a glimpse of Isaiah’s vision of nations who one day willingly turn their war colleges into colleges of peace; nations who one day choose to study war no more. Now that would be worthy of an Advent anthem, “Gloria en excelsis, Deo!” Isaiah 2:1-5 (NRSV) By Bob Yoder, campus pastor at Goshen Gollege Reprinted from Advent Devotionals The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. DEVOTIONAL:
“O the mystery of God’s dwelling” expresses a sense of awe and wonder. Will we hold these words as a reverential expression for God’s act of incarnation? Will we mutter them with a sense of frustration and confusion trying to fully make sense of God entering the human world? The Advent Scriptures present us with a plethora of images of judgment, pain, suffering, idolatry and oppression in both the natural and the human worlds, as well as the parallel images of restoration, redemption, salvation, wholeness and peace. When you consider the literal and metaphorical paths you have walked in life, what comes to mind? I go back to the woods of my childhood farm. There were different paths traversed for various reasons. Some were made by our tractor, others by human feet, and still others by deer that regularly bounded through. Most of the paths were contained within our property boundaries that I knew well. As long as I stayed on them I was sure to circle back to a place of familiarity. But other paths went beyond our property to unknown destinations. What was on the other side? Where would it take me? Were those lands more of the same or different? Should I go there? What will happen if I do? I have had both joyful surprises and unexpected annoyances on the paths of life. But sometimes the paths I trekked delivered tragic realities for which I wondered if there could have been another way, or why this happened. Like the Psalmist, I questioned and exclaimed, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest,” (Psalm 22). PRAYER: O God, wander with me in the paths of life. Help me recognize your presence when mystery is my close companion. |
Chad Hill
Pastor, Allen-Lee CategoriesArchives
April 2015
|