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Morning Devotion for the Season of Advent

December 16, 2022

Invitatory

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

Glory to the Father, and to the Son: and to the Holy Spirit: as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.

Our King and Savior now draws near: Come let us adore him.

Reading - Ephesians 2:17-22

So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.^* In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually^* into a dwelling-place for God.

Meditation - Winnie Smith

For years, I have had a very specific image of God. Not the man up in the sky, not a big cloud-like creature that watches over us. The image that always comes to mind for me is that of an intricately spun spider web. God is the silk - the literal web - that holds every single person together on earth. With this image in mind, I am forced to recognize the similarities we all share; when I think of God in this way, and each of us as being caught on or stuck to the web of God, then I cannot help but care for others.

But there’s more to this metaphor. Spider webs are unbelievably strong. While much thinner than a single human hair, a single strand of spider silk is made up of thousands of nanostrands, which means that each web is actually composed of countless strands and cords of silk all woven together. The result is a complex network of material far stronger than any single component on its own.

Isn’t that a great description of humanity? That we are knit together through and by God? Made stronger by every individual working with others to create something so much bigger and more solid than each of us alone? Through Jesus’s life and death, we have “access in one Spirit to the Father.” And that unites us: we are “no longer strangers and aliens, but citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God.” When Jesus died, he did so in order for every person on earth to have a relationship with God. His death overcame sin and humankind’s tendency towards it and gave us all another chance to be in communion with God. We are all in relationship to one another because we are all in relationship to God.

For me, this is reassuring. When confronted with difficulty or feelings of isolation, I know fundamentally that I am never alone. There is someone on this earth - on the web - who has gone through the same thing before or will go through it in the future. How incredible that the God who loves us created a world in which we are always supported. So today I thank God for the messy, tangled, indestructible web that holds us all together.

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.