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Morning Devotion for the Season of Christmastide

December 30, 2022

Invitatory

Behold, the dwelling of God is with mankind. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them, and be their God.

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: Isaiah 25:1,4-9

O Lord, you are my God; I will exalt you; I will praise your name, for you have done wonderful things, plans formed of old, faithful and sure. For you have been a refuge to the poor, a refuge to the needy in their distress, a shelter from the rainstorm and a shade from the heat. When the blast of the ruthless was like a winter rainstorm, the noise of foreigners like heat in a dry place, you subdued the heat with the shade of clouds; the song of the ruthless was stilled. On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear. And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the covering that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever. Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken. It will be said on that day, “See, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us. This is the Lord for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”

Meditation – Peter Vanderveen

I have no interest in trying to diminish any of the jubilation or celebration or just sheer fun that many look for at the turning of the year. ‘Tis the season to be merry. And, indeed, I hope that in the midst of all the gatherings something truly new may mark the new year. God knows we are deeply in need of something that can break the iron grip of our pasts that haunt and, with increasing shrillness, demand recompense that can’t possibly be made. True joy, however, will never come either from blithe forgetfulness or the coming to terms of everything that, once again, seems to be in vogue. Joy will come in a very different form.

This noted, and I say this humorously, it has always seemed strange to me that New Year’s Eve has become the one time when we’re more than willing to feign excitement or wax nostalgic as countless celebrities from years long past are paraded out as if their reappearance is a matter of breathless delight. Isn’t it odd that we dig up B-list performers who never had much fame in the first place and highlight them as those who should usher in the future? It’s the old trying to cheat time; a reunion of relics who hope that time is irrelevant. And we play along with the festivities.

It’s still a day shy of its official observation, but I’d like to posit that the text above, appointed from Isaiah, is a nearly perfect alternative for New Year’s Eve reflections. Seriously – though this in itself might be the problem.

Isaiah provides a vision of remarkable culmination and yearning. He is able to recount how God has acted, especially on behalf of all those who would have been otherwise crushed by the powerful in the world. There has always been – and there will always be – light that shines in the darkness. And there will never be those of such power that the darkness will vanquish the light. At very least, even if all others fail, God will see to this. God’s faithfulness to us is such that we will never be abandoned. This is the witness of the God of old, and this is the assurance of the Godliness that is a constant, as the promise extended to the furthest reaches of the future. The ruthless will not reign. This, Isaiah states, has been shown.

And yet this is not all. For there remain ways for God to be God that have yet to be fully revealed. There are things still to come – a future that is meaningful, rather than just a continuation of time. Part of the grace of our lives, then, is to wait in hope, with the expectation of such things that surpass our ability to explain or understand. We have words for these: redemption, reconciliation, resurrection, and, in the realization of all these, joy. In the completion of this salvation God will reveal the fullness of Godliness. (How grossly misguided and pathetic it is that we can’t find a way to discard the God of wrath, of guilt, of judgment, and of damnation; God made in our image.)

In Isaiah’s text, culmination and yearning complement one another. They direct us not merely back into nostalgia or toward a momentary but empty enthusiasm but into a brilliant, substantial, and magnificent future, something truly new, which gives us – more than celebration – reason to rejoice. At the turning of the year, I rejoice having had the opportunity to share this hope at length amid the Redeemer community. I’m deeply grateful. And I look toward a continued future of expanding joy.

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.