Mark 1:1–4 (Listen)
John the Baptist Prepares the Way
1:1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
2 As it is written in Isaiah the prophet,
“Behold, I send my messenger before your face,
who will prepare your way,
3 the voice of one crying in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight,’”
4 John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
Wednesday of the Third Week in Advent
Have you ever used a paring knife? Or, have you ever had a grandparent or parent peel, pare the skin off, an apple, especially around the holidays — maybe to make a pie? From the time I was young, I loved the whole idea of paring. Despite my mom’s scolding, I pared the crust off bread. Pudding was another thing that needed paring. I hated “skins” on top of cooling pudding. Fruits too! What kind of kid would ever eat that fuzzy skin on peaches along with the nice peach inside. Gag me! Paring was very useful for me as a kid, but it was also something I loved seeing my mom do, and still today, my wife. Oh the wonderful pies and goodies that are produced by paring.Our journey through the season of Advent is about getting ourselves ready by cutting away that which is not necessary. Advent is a time to pre-pare to enter the true joy of Jesus. We hear this call in John the Baptizer’s words.
Preparing is about confessing, repenting, dropping the stuff that holds us down. John himself was an image of shedding; camel hair cloths and eating locust and honey. John’s ministry was one of washing — removing and paring away what holds a person down. I would like to suggest that there are at least three ways we should prepare in order to one, put Jesus at the center of our activities; two, be the joy in our relationship with others; and three, be ready to go home.
Jesus at the center. At the heart of everything we do in the next few weeks should be Jesus — the one who came for us, to save us. Jesus is the reason for the season! It may seem trite, but it’s true. And yet, we are tempted to get our eyes upon other, non-eternal, things. Other lights dazzle us. Other gifts obsess us. Other thirsts and hungers make us think we are fed. It seems that many times we set out on the journey of Advent anticipating joy, but joy diminishes with the burdens of preparation for Christmas. If you start feeling anxious and burdened in Advent, consider paring away what is NOT necessary, for our Lord Jesus wants you to be filled, not emptied. We may need to replace some of our activities in this season with Jesus if we truly want to be dazzled, graced, quenched and fed.
Be joy in relationships! Paring, in order to put Jesus at the center, leads to something wonderful. It leads to really having joy, because Jesus makes our joy complete. We celebrate radiance in Advent and Christmas. A guiding star point to Messiah, the light come into darkness. Of course, His purpose was not just to be an amusing ornament, but to make us radiant too; lights on a hill. Our joy can become radiance in our relationship with others. If not distracted, we can truly listen to others, and truly share our heart-felt relationship with the Light of the world. Without paring away some things, the temptations of the season can prevent us from operating from a place of joy.
You can shop till you drop and eat till you explode, but when we don’t operate from joy and faith in Jesus, these activities can rob us from being radiant joy in our relationships.
There are a lot of scriptural alarm bells during this season, and the one thing they all have in common is that an end will come, so be ready. We need to prepare ourselves to go to our true home with the Lord. This is where hope becomes something to cling to, and our hope in Jesus will not disappoints us. However, hope in something else will disappoint us!
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying we should withdraw and become monastic during Advent. The message of the season isn’t “stop expending your energy”, but “expend your energy in the right direction!”
Prayer: Dear Lord of heaven and earth, we thank You for Your attention to us, even though we do not deserve it. We thank You for preparing a place for us so that we can be free in this life to pare away the thing that separate us from You and each other. Open our eyes to see the things we need to get rid of so we can have and be true joy for others. Amen.
Devotion written by The Rev. Dr. Jesse J. Abbott
Isaiah 9:8–17 (Listen)
Judgment on Arrogance and Oppression
8 The Lord has sent a word against Jacob,
and it will fall on Israel;
9 and all the people will know,
Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria,
who say in pride and in arrogance of heart:
10 “The bricks have fallen,
but we will build with dressed stones;
the sycamores have been cut down,
but we will put cedars in their place.”
11 But the LORD raises the adversaries of Rezin against him,
and stirs up his enemies.
12 The Syrians on the east and the Philistines on the west
devour Israel with open mouth.
For all this his anger has not turned away,
and his hand is stretched out still.
13 The people did not turn to him who struck them,
nor inquire of the LORD of hosts.
14 So the LORD cut off from Israel head and tail,
palm branch and reed in one day—
15 the elder and honored man is the head,
and the prophet who teaches lies is the tail;
16 for those who guide this people have been leading them astray,
and those who are guided by them are swallowed up.
17 Therefore the Lord does not rejoice over their young men,
and has no compassion on their fatherless and widows;
for everyone is godless and an evildoer,
and every mouth speaks folly.
For all this his anger has not turned away,
and his hand is stretched out still.
Morning Psalms
Evening Psalms
“John of the Cross, Renewer of the Church, 1591”
This daily prayer and Bible reading guide, Devoted to Prayer (based on Acts 2:42), was conceived and prepared by the Rev. Andrew S. Ames Fuller, director of communications for the North American Lutheran Church (NALC). After several challenging years in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have been provided with a unique opportunity to revitalize the ancient practice of daily prayer and Scripture reading in our homes. While the Reading the Word of God three-year lectionary provided a much-needed and refreshing calendar for our congregations to engage in Scripture reading, this calendar includes a missing component of daily devotion: prayer. This guide is to provide the average layperson and pastor with the simple tools for sorting through the busyness of their lives and reclaiming an act of daily discipleship with their Lord. The daily readings follow the Lutheran Book of Worship two-year daily lectionary, which reflect the church calendar closely. The commemorations are adapted from Philip H. Pfatteicher’s New Book of Festivals and Commemorations, a proposed common calendar of the saints that builds from the Lutheran Book of Worship, but includes saints from many of those churches in ecumenical conversation with the NALC. The introductory portion is adapted from Christ Church (Plano)’s Pray Daily. Our hope is that this calendar and guide will provide new life for congregations learning and re-learning to pray in the midst of a difficult and changing world.