Monday
Christ whose glory fills the skies,
Christ the true, the only light,
Sun of righteousness arise,
Triumph o’er the shades of night:
Day-spring from on high be near;
Day-star in my heart appear.
All around us are signs of God active and moving by his Spirit. The first fingers of dawn announce every single day the light that God commands, and the light that is God’s gift in Christ. Charles Wesley plays the theme of light like a virtuoso. He knows his Bible inside out! “The sun of righteousness will rise with healing in his wings.” (Malachi 4.2) Think about it. Advent is when we celebrate the healing of darkness, all kinds of darkness, by the coming of the Light that is Christ. That last line, is an Advent prayer that Christ will be light within us, glowing outward in faith, hope, and love.
Tuesday
Our God, heaven cannot hold him,
Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away
When he comes to reign.
In the bleak midwinter
A stable place sufficed
The Lord God almighty –
Jesus Christ.
‘In the bleak midwinter’ remains for many of us the most evocative and poignant of carols. Tune and words combine to express the longing and wonder of human hearts. Why can’t heaven hold Almighty God, the Holy One? The answer is love. The stable is as humble as it gets. That’s where God in Christ goes, into the bleak midwinter of human sin, suffering and lost-ness. The coming of God’s Christ child, into the world’s bleakness for love’s sake. That is Advent. Not even heaven’s glory can hold Him back!
Wednesday
King is He, yet born a servant, Lord of all in humble guise,
Truly man, yet God revealing, God as love to mortal eyes;
God with man, He leads and feeds us, He the power and He the prize.
This is verse 2 of “Let all mortal flesh keep silence”, an ancient hymn about the world struck dumb with awe and wonder. The paradoxes tell us why; the servant king, the humble Lord, and this One who is truly human yet fully revealing God. In all the unavoidable trivialities of Christmas, this hymn insists we shut up! Just for once, silence the noise of our greed and need, and pay attention with fear and trembling to who God is. God is for us! God is with us! At cost beyond imagining or calculating, God comes amongst us in love, in the noisy presence of a human child. Advent is an invitation to awe! And awe is the signal to worship – He the power, and He the prize!
Thursday
Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace!
Hail the Sun of Righteousness!
Light and life to all he brings,
Risen with healing in his wings.
Mild, He lays his glory by;
Born that man no more may die;
Born to raise the sons of earth;
Born to give them second birth.
Hark! The herald angels sing
Glory to the new-born King.
This is a mosaic of biblical phrases from Isaiah, Malachi, the Gospel of John, Romans, Philippians, and of course, Luke’s choir of angels. The great Messianic titles come at the climax of the carol, drawing our eyes to behold his glory, full of grace and truth. The eternal glory of the Son is laid aside in obedience to God. And notice, that word ‘risen’. It’s one of those trigger words for Christians. It refers to the rising of the sun of hope and the in-breaking light and life of God. But ‘risen’ also anticipates the resurrection when “Light and life to all He brings.” But first, Bethlehem. Advent is about a child being born; Wesley tells you why. Three times. Born! Glory indeed!
Friday
Lo, within a manger lies
He who built the starry skies,
He who throned in height sublime,
Sits amid the cherubim.
Hail thou ever-blessed morn!
Hail redemption’s happy dawn!
Sing through all Jerusalem
Christ is born in Bethlehem!
However simple we like to think the Christmas story, the Christmas gift comes wrapped in theological mystery and complexity. The One who constructs and commands the teeming galaxies is somehow “born for us on earth below”. One poet described this as “Infinity dwindled to infancy.” The loving condescension of God is revealed in the coming of the Christ-child, and it is that gracious self-giving act of God that turns up the volume of a four line refrain requiring three exclamation marks!!!
Saturday
Still the night, holy the night!
Son of God, O how bright!
Love is smiling from thy face!
Strikes for us now the hour of grace
Saviour since Thou art born.
That middle line could have been written by John the Apostle. “For God so loved the world…” “God is love.” “Here is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son…” The coming of God amongst us in the incarnation is a mystery made accessible, and a miracle made believable, only because God in grace opens our minds to truth that is beyond us, and prepares our hearts to recognise and welcome God’s presence in Jesus. Advent is a season for adventurous imagination. Listen, and you will hear distinctly and clearly, filtered through the din of a noisy and clamorous world, the striking of the hour of grace, by the Son of God. Then look, with eyes that see in the bright light of divine revelation, God’s love smiling from the face of Christ.
God of God,
Light of Light,
Lo, He abhors not the Virgin's womb’
Very God,
Begotten, not created.
O come, let us adore Him
Christ the Lord.
Advent is our annual call to hope, when we emphasise expectation and give words to the deep longings of our hearts for peace, and a more positive future. This whole hymn is an invitation to “Come, let us adore Him. Christ the Lord.” Adoration is the true spirit of worship, combining love, gratitude, wonder, awe, and a deep humbling of the heart. This verse explains why, with its insistent “O come…” Huge arguments about how Christ can be divine and human lie behind these words. But it is in words such as these that he Church proclaims its faith. Through prayer and wonder, and inadequate words, adoration is the heart’s welcome to Christ the Lord.
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