Welcome to Advent 2011!
If you are new to Advent, follow this link to learn more about it. Really, it’ll help you. I’ll wait.
Where do we start
with Advent?
We started yesterday with the first Sunday of Advent. The theme for the first Sunday (and this
week) is hope. Indeed, Advent is a time
for hope. This is not the “I hope I get
an iPad for Christmas”. This is hope
based on, and for, Jesus Christ. Think
of Advent as a journey: here we are four weeks away from celebrating Christ’s
birth. We hope.
Read the following two passages of Scripture for today and
meditate on the hope we have in Christ!
Jeremiah
33:14-16
14 “ ‘The days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will fulfill the gracious
promise I made to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah.
15 “
‘In those days and at that time I will make a righteous Branch sprout from
David’s line; he will do what is just and right in the land.
16 In
those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. This is the
name by which it will be called: The Lord
Our Righteousness.’
1
Corinthians 1:4-9
4 I always thank God for you because of his grace given
you in Christ Jesus. 5 For in him you have been enriched in every
way—in all your speaking and in all your knowledge— 6 because our
testimony about Christ was confirmed in you. 7 Therefore you do not
lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be
revealed. 8 He will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be
blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God, who has called
you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful.
Suggestions for reading and meditation through this week:
·
Isaiah 2:1-5
·
Isaiah 64:1-9
·
Psalm 80:1-7; 17-19
·
Romans 13:11-14
·
Song: “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”
·
Song: “Come Thou Long Expected Jesus”
Happy
first Sunday of Advent! In Romans 5:5 Paul
writes, “Hope does not disappoint us,
because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he
has given us.”
Life Meets Theology 