Living Wittily

First Week in Advent with Isaiah: Walking in Darkness and Seeing the Light

Monday

Isaiah 2.4-5 “He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plough-shares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. Come, descendants of Jacob, let us walk in the light of the Lord.”

“The Spirit lives to set us free, walk, walk in the light.” That celebration song is about despair eclipsed by hope, light displacing darkness, peace overcoming war. Advent is about such hope, light and peace, and each of them embedded in the promises of God. “Lighten our darkness Lord, restore our hope, and let there be peace on earth.”

Tuesday

Isaiah 9.2 “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light, on those living in the land of the shadow of death, a light has dawned.”

 In every life, there are times when we walk through valleys of deep darkness, shadows of anxiety, grey depths of depression, leaden skies of grief and loss. None of these are final. The birth of Jesus was under a star, and a choir of luminous angels. The noonday darkness of Calvary gave way to the pulsating light of the resurrection. Christians are people who look into darkness knowing, “a light has dawned. “Lord when we walk in darkness, lift up our eyes to see the Advent of Christ the Light. Shine, Jesus, shine!”

Wednesday

Isaiah 42.6 “I, the Lord have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and will make you…a light for the Gentiles.”

 Isaiah is the prophet who tells of the coming Servant of the Lord. When Jesus said, “I am the Light of the world”, God’s promise through Isaiah was in his mind. God doesn’t hide his light under a bushel; it blazed in glory on Calvary, and the good news of the risen Jesus spread out of the tomb, and floodlit the world, a light to the peoples, all peoples, even us. “Lord, kindle a flame of sacred love in our hearts, making us irradiated servants of the Servant King.”

Thursday

Isaiah 49.6 “I will also make you a light to the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.”

From Bethlehem, to Calvary, to the Garden tomb and to Pentecost. That long line of promises is fulfilled only when the Good News illuminates a dark world with the light of the love of God in Christ. Advent is the time that takes us back to the greatest truth the world has ever received, “That God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.” Christians are filaments through which the power of Christ the Saviour shines on a darkened world. “Lord, energise and illuminate your church, a city on a hill that no one can miss. Make your Church a landmark of love, unmistakably there, for all to see.”

Friday

Isaiah 53.11 “After he has suffered, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.”

 Isaiah 53 is the Holy of Holies of Isaiah’s visions. Easter is implied in Advent. The road from Bethlehem leads to Calvary, and beyond. You will call his name Jesus, Joseph is told, for he will save his people from their sins. Light is essential for life, and endless darkness would be fatal. So God comes in Christ as the light of life, and through the darkness of suffering comes the light of new resurrection life. “Lord, this Advent, we confess our own sins all over again; may the Light of Life renew our hearts in love.”

Saturday

Isaiah 60.1-3 “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.  See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the Lord rises upon you and his glory appears over you. Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.”

 If ever there was a time for people of hope, it’s now! A whole News Bulletin could be summarised in Isaiah’s words: “Thick darkness is over the peoples.” Advent is when we defy despair, insistently hope, persistently pray for peace and justice, and look for light wherever it struggles to shine. The Advent heart-cry echoes the summons of the prophet, “Arise, shine, your light has come.” “Lord, fuel our hearts with hope, ignite us with the fires of compassion, and make us radiant radiators of your grace and glory.”

Sunday

Isaiah 60.19 “The sun will no more be your light by day, nor will the brightness of the moon shine on you, for the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory.”

Christ is all the light we will ever need. “In him was life, and the life was the light of all people.” (John 1.4) Advent is the celebration of God’s coming to us in Christ, as the Light of Life. In the Christ child, the ministry of compassion, the sacrifice on the cross, the triumph of resurrection, God has spoken his final, defining Word. This is what God is like. “This is our God, the Servant King, He calls us now to follow him.”

“Lord, we live our lives in the contrasts of light and darkness, hope and despair, comfort and anxiety, joy and sorrow. May the light of Christ come into our hearts this Advent, instilling hope from the God of Hope, communicating the comfort of the Comforter, stirring joy in hearts becoming too used to sorrow. You, O God, are the Everlasting Light; shine on us now, and guide our way forward, Amen. 

Advent: Putting the Waiting Back into Wanting.

If you want breakfast at Greggs, you usually have to wait in the queue. From 8.00am till around 9.30 am, Greggs is the favourite breakfast takeaway for folk going to work or school. The coffee and bacon rolls are very good, and very good value – I’m able to confirm this from personal experience!

If it’s worth waiting for, people don’t mind waiting. Patience isn’t a problem if you know that, when your turn comes, you’ll get what you hope for. But there’s another kind of waiting. It goes on and on and on, until it seems there’s no end to the waiting.

Advent is when we rediscover the importance of waiting for God. “They that wait for the Lord will renew their strength,” said Isaiah the prophet. True enough. But sometimes waiting can be so frustrating! Maybe that’s because we’ve become used to getting things done quickly. We value immediacy, right now - from making coffee, to ordering online with delivery today or tomorrow, to binge-watching a TV box set so we don’t have to wait for weekly episodes. Take the waiting out of wanting is one of today’s most powerful marketing promises.

So we need Advent to slow us down, to train us in patience, to recover the wonder of waiting. Here is Isaiah again, this verse is not so well known, but it's an important word from the Lord to hearts becoming impatient with long term promises.

“Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you: he rises to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him.” (Isaiah 30.18)

The story of Jesus, from Advent to Second Coming is a story punctuated by waiting, allowing God’s purposes to be worked out in God’s time, at God’s pace, and to our blessing. Mary receives the annunciation that she will have a child named Jesus, the Messiah, the Saviour, Emmanuel. Nine months later we are in Bethlehem, and not long after, the baby is a refugee. Please don’t overlook that dark corner of the Christmas story. Joseph, Mary and their baby were fleeing from the violence and terror of murdering soldiers. Christians of all people should understand the importance of welcome and protection for those fleeing for their lives.

The Bethlehem refugees waited in Egypt till Herod died and the threat was past. They re-settled in Nazareth and Jesus waited 30 years, “growing in favour with God and all who knew him.” For three years Jesus healed, taught and lived the life of one utterly obedient to the Father. There was a lot of waiting, because as John regularly says throughout his Gospel, “His time had not yet come.”

But come it did, and Jesus was crucified and buried. That three day wait was too much for the disciples. Rather than wait for the promise of Jesus rising from the dead, they panicked, ran away, hid themselves, kept busy, and gave up - anything but wait for something that was never going to happen. But happen it did. What started with angels and celebration at Bethlehem, came to an earth-juddering halt on Calvary. Until early on the third day! Just as the sun was rising, the Son was rising, and indeed as angels once announced his birth, now angels announced “He is risen!”

But still the waiting continues. “Wait in the city,” Jesus says, “till you are clothed with power from on high.” Pentecost comes and the Gospel overflows from the hearts of disciples now filled with the Holy Spirit, flowing out to the ends of the world and to the end of the ages. And the waiting continues, as we await the second coming of Jesus, the One to whom every knee shall bow in heaven and on earth.

This Advent, we will try to learn again that God’s purposes don’t work out to our timetable, nor to our agendas. As Isaiah said, “The Lord is a God of justice.” He will make things right. Why?  “The Lord longs to be gracious to you: he rises to show you compassion…” No wonder Isaiah goes on to say, “Blessed are all who wait for him.”

Those queues outside Gregg’s are their own testimony. Experience has shown those folk that it’s worth the waiting. You can almost hear those words of Jesus in his favourite teaching style. If waiting at Gregg’s is worth it, “How much more” is it worth waiting before God, in quiet trust, in patient faith, and with hearts open to the coming of Jesus into our world, into our community life, and into our hearts. Live this week with Isaiah 30.18, and discover again the Lord who longs to be gracious to you, who rises to show you compassion, and who blesses you as you wait before him,

The 1668 Cafe - An Oasis of Welcome.

On a recent visit to Inverness I passed this old building. The seventeenth century is one of my happy places, though to be fair, most of the seventeenth century wasn't the happiest of times in Scotland, or England.

It was the century that gave us the King James Bible, Shakespeare, Donne, Herbert,  the growth and turbulence of dissenting and non-conformist Christians. However, it also visited on these various nations and islands much that was regrettable.

The legacy of damage, mistrust, and historic grievance has never finally dissipated. Few passions are more powerful than those generated by religious convictions; and few grievances are more carefully nursed than those persecuted for freedom of belief and claimed independence of thought in religious and political affiliations.

This building itself dates from 1668, and has a happier history. It began life as Dunbar's Hospital, built in 1668 as an almshouse and hospital by Provost Alexander Dunbar. One online source suggests it may have been constructed from the stone of Oliver Cromwell's dismantled citadel.¹ In the 360 years since it was built it has been a place of public service in many different expressions. Hospital, almshouse,  poor house, school, library and day care and social care centre. 

In 2019 it opened as a cafe which provides free meals for homeless, vulnerable and otherwise struggling folk.² I didn't have time to go in, but given the harvest of bad news reaped and relentlessly displayed across our phones, computers, and TVs, I found this enterprise a welcome relief. Here is a building 360 years on, still a safe place for vulnerable folk, a place of welcome for the lonely, food for the hungry, and of humanity in a world that can give every impression that we have forgotten the humanity of others, and are therefore in danger of losing our own capacity for humane and compassionate attitudes, benevolent and generous actions, and social responsibilities to others felt as obligation and not option.

¹ https://www.scottish-places.info/features/featurefirst8923.html

²  You can find more about 1668 Cafe here: https://www.highlandtsi.org.uk/cafe

I Corinthians 13. 4-7: Love Is a Many Splendoured Grace

Photo in Garlogie Woods, late November 2023

Monday

1 Cor. 13.4a “Love is patient and kind.”

I doubt anyone could describe modern 21^st Century life as one where people have patience with each other. In the checkout queue, behind a steering wheel, waiting for the cappuccino – the two most important words are ‘me’ and ‘now’. Likewise kindness is hardly the defining attribute of the abrasive, often self-assertive ways we go about life on the roads, in the shops, the office. And yet. Give thanks for those moments of kindness and patience we see others enact. Because what you are looking at is love in action. “Lord, if only we could be as patient and kind with others as you are with us.”   

Tuesday

1 Cor. 13.4b. “Love does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.”

Three things love cannot do, because they all describe a self-centred view of the world. Envy is me resenting what others have; boasting is me telling the world about me; pride is self-importance given a microphone. Love will always mean allowing the other person to be valued, praised, paid attention to, without feeling their joy and fulfilment diminishes us. “Lord, make us comfortable with the humility and generosity of genuine love.”

Wednesday

1 Cor. 13.5a. “Love is not rude, it is not self-seeking.”

Love does not disrespect others, does not dishonour or embarrass others. This is about more than good manners; it is a way of treating others as those loved by God, made in God’s image, and worthy of our time and attention. Love is not pleasing ourselves, just as Jesus ‘didn’t please himself.’ (Rom. 15.1-3). Instead, we look for ways to affirm, befriend, and encourage others. The Prodigal Son’s father is a good example of such love. “Lord, help us to be loving hosts of those we meet today.”

Thursday

1 Cor. 13.5b. “Love is not easily angered, and it keeps no record of rights and wrongs.”

Anger and love are not incompatible. But being habitually angry, or quick-tempered, or prone to that passive aggression that grits teeth and seethes inwardly – these do argue the absence of love. What’s more, the very things that make us angry, and we note down for later ammunition? Forget it! That’s what love does. Erase, tear up, score out, delete. Love isn’t in the business of keeping accounts and paying back. Lord, temper our temper with love, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”

Friday

1 Cor. 13.6 “Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.”

Gospel people never celebrate evil, from hurtful gossip to dishonesty in business, from political rhetoric that belittles the vulnerable, the poor, or those who are amongst the least, the lost and the last. William Barclay defined agape love as “indefatigable goodwill.” Love never tires of rejoicing in every victory of goodness, every forgiveness offered, and every act of kindness. “Lord, give us a love that has the courage to call out evil, and the energy to celebrate everything that is good and true.”

Saturday

1 Cor. 13.7 “Love always protects and always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

That word ‘always’ also mean ‘in all things’. Love doesn’t pick and choose. Love puts up with everything, or as one translation puts it, “there’s nothing love cannot face.” Before we think this is asking too much, this is an exact description of Calvary, the final and defining demonstration of a love that stops at nothing. For Jesus, there’s nothing love cannot face, even the cross. God’s love is for always, and confronts and deals with all things, even our sin. “Lord, so touch our hearts with your love, that our whole being is transformed, and we become conduits of the love of Christ crucified.”

Sunday

1 Cor. 13.7 “Love always protects and always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

Love looks after the interests of others, protects. Love trusts the mercy and goodness of God to bring help, blessing and newness into each human life. Love hopes for the best for others, that against all the odds of a broken world, God is working out his purposes for good. Love perseveres, keeps going, doesn’t give up, looks to a future when love, truth and goodness triumph. “Love has won, death is dead, Christ has conquered.” “Lord, infuse our love with hope and trust, and enable us to persevere and not give up in our great calling to love as we have been loved by Christ.”  

A Blessing

Go forth into the world in peace; be of good courage; hold fast that which is good; render to no one evil for evil; strengthen the fainthearted; support the weak; help the afflicted; honour all people; love and serve the Lord, rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit, and the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God, today, tomorrow and always, AMEN

Why Advent Isn't a Waste of Time

The first Sunday in Advent is a week or soo away. I am finding it very difficult to move into any mood of anticipation, eager waiting, and that determined hopefulness sung so confidently in Christmas carols. 

The past seven weeks have been hellish for all the peoples entrapped in violence in what it is becoming impossible to call "the Holy Land". Every Advent, forced by that horrendous story in Matthew's gospel, I grieve the slaughter of the innocents, those far too easily forgotten infants who were collateral damage for Herod's paranoia and state sponsored terrorism. 

Long before Christ came, and in the two thousand years since, the slaughter of the innocents has continued. With modern technology and pervasive social media, we are now able to witness the human cost and consequences of war in all its destructive terror. The phrase 'the slaughter of the innocents" takes on not only biblical, but digitally enhanced proportions. 

What is happening in Israel, Gaza, the West Bank, and the border with Lebanon, gives little hope of peace with justice, of reconciliation and co-existence. So Advent comes at the right time. Just as it seems the darkness wins again, the genius of the liturgy brings us back to God's invasion of our broken, often cruel, and sin-darkened world. 

I believe that Bethlehem is a place where the unthinkable can be thought, the impossible can be conceived, and the hopeless can be redeemed. Yes, what else are we to make of that ridiculously hyped-up choir and orchestra beating out their peace anthem? This Advent, more than ever, Christians are called to hope against hope, to defy despair, to insist on peace as possible, and to echo the words that contradict all military orders, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace and goodwill amongst all people." Oh, yes - God help us, yes!

Thomas Merton, in the remarkable essay collection, Raids on the Unspeakable, wrote the following words at a time when the Vietnam war was spiralling into yet more slaughter of the innocents, Civil Rights protests were violent, and whole communities conflicted and at each others throats: 

“Into this world, this demented inn, in which there is absolutely no room for him at all, Christ has come uninvited.” 

“But because he cannot be at home in it, because he is out of place in it, and yet he must be in it, his place is with those others for whom there is no room.

"His place is with those who do not belong, who are rejected by power because they are regarded as weak, those who are discredited, who are denied the status of persons, tortured, exterminated. With those for whom there is no room, Christ is present in this world.”

In a world where the innocent are still slaughtered, where power is militarised and mobilised, apparently there is no room for the Prince of Peace. But still He comes. "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself." So we wait, in quiet and defiant trust, for the Advent of God.