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Morning Devotion for the Season of Advent

December 12, 2022

The Invitatory

The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son: and to the Holy Ghost;

As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end. Amen.

Reading: Psalm 25: 3-9

 Show me your ways, O Lord, *

and teach me your paths.

 Lead me in your truth and teach me, *

for you are the God of my salvation;

in you have I trusted all the day long.

Remember, O Lord, your compassion and love, *

for they are from everlasting.

Remember not the sins of my youth and my transgressions; *

remember me according to your love

and for the sake of your goodness, O Lord.

Gracious and upright is the Lord; *

therefore he teaches sinners in his way.

 He guides the humble in doing right *

and teaches his way to the lowly.

 All the paths of the Lord are love and faithfulness *

to those who keep his covenant and his testimonies.

Meditation: Jo Ann B. Jones

Such a poignant human expression of pleading and suffering! And at the same time it speaks of an honest intimacy between one human being and God. For this human being pleads from the depth of a suffering soul to God whom the speaker trusts for deliverance and mercy. I imagine many of us can remember such a time in our lives and the prayers that we lifted to God. How mixed were our feelings at such a time? For despite this trust, there is a cry of desperation. It points to our longing for God not only to deliver us from our troubles, but also for God to see us fully.

There is such a human quandary here: two prayers woven together, expressing the absence of God, and the other a trust in God’s direction and deliverance. The speaker’s emotions seem to swirl in his soul as he pleads for both attention and deliverance from suffering together with forgiveness of sins of the past. One has a sense for how haunted the speaker feels. And at the same time the speaker lifts up a petition for guidance to the right path. While mercy is dependent on God and not on our own deserving, the Psalmist knows that such mercy is most often found by walking the way that God has provided. Whatever the cause of this individual’s suffering, a significant portion of the pain is the sense of God’s apparent absence in the midst of it.

Yet in spite of the pain we must admire the speaker’s pursuit of God because God can be trusted to provide deliverance. Interwoven with this appeal to God is a particular plea for forgiveness. “Remember, O Lord, your compassion and love, for they are from everlasting. Remember not the sins of my youth and my transgressions; remember me according to your love and for the sake of your goodness, O Lord.” Interestingly, it seems that the natures of God and of the human being both seem hidden in the midst of suffering and shame, and only God’s attention to the one who is suffering can restore that person. We may find ourselves often stuck in this very emotional conundrum. It reminds us how utterly dependent on God we are.

Advent often seems to come to us as a pinhole of light surrounded by darkness. The world, with its suffering, its violence, its ruthlessness, at times seems so dark, and the light seems so puny. We want it to be enough, but we’re not really convinced it will be. We fear that the light that God has promised won’t really shine in the darkest corners of our world, or of ourselves. And it is only dimly, through that pinhole of light, that we see ourselves, reduced to our shortcomings, and we long for God to look past those faults and really see us. Let us daily grow to lengthen the time that that light breaks through our darkness and we stand in its midst.

The Lord's Prayer

Our Father, who art in heaven,

    hallowed be thy Name,

    thy kingdom come,

    thy will be done,

        on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our trespasses,

    as we forgive those

        who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation,

    but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom,

    and the power, and the glory

   for ever and ever. Amen.