(With thanks to Lindsay Meader and St James Piccadilly)
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Advent 2011
Weekly Collect and Daily Readings from Sunday 27 November – Saturday 3 December
Collect for Sunday 27 November - Saturday 3 December:
God our deliverer,
whose approaching birth
still shakes the foundations of our world:
may we so wait for your coming
with eagerness and hope
that we embrace without terror
the labour pangs of the new age,
through Jesus Christ we pray. Amen.
Daily Readings:
Sunday 27 November
In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it. Many peoples shall come and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob: that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths. For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. Isaiah 2:2-5
We watched from our car, parked on the sand, as she skipped along in her pink plastic wellies. She must have been all of three-and-a-half, and she carried a large plastic sword. Her little brother had a spade. It didn’t matter – any stick would have been alright to poke in all the puddles and prod the sand.
It didn’t enter her head to use the sword as a weapon, to cross sword and spade with her brother. No – she was tracing long furrows in the sand. She had innocently turned her sword into a ploughshare. Will we adults learn to follow the teachings of little children? David Hawkey in "Growing Hope", ed. Neil Paynter
Monday 28 November
See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the Lord your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess. But if your heart turns away and you do not hear, but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall perish; you shall not live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you and length of days, so that you may live in the land that the Lord swore to give to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. Deuteronomy 30:15-20
Look at the world today – at what you read in the newspapers or see on the television news – and ask why is it that the human race, given so many blessings, turn them into curses? Given the choice of life and good, we choose instead death and evil! Why, from the wonderful timber of a tree, make the ugly torture of a cross? Why do nations with hungry mouths to feed and families poorly housed choose instead the weapons of mass destruction? Professor James Whyte in "Growing Hope", ed. Neil Paynter
Tuesday 29 November
Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.
He will not cry or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not grow faint or be crushed until he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his teaching. Isaiah 42:1-5
Make us keep the sputtering lantern burning
and not break a wounded reed
Make us understand
the secret of eternal life
from the pulse of blood in our veins
and realise the worth of a life
from the movement of a warm heart
Make us not discriminate
the rich from the poor
the high from the low
the learned from the ignorant
those we know well and those we
do not know
Oh!
A human life can’t be exchanged for the whole world
This supreme task of keeping the lives
of the sons and daughters of God.
Let us realise how lovely it is
to feel the burdens of responsibility.
By a worker of the Peace Market, Korea
in "Growing Hope", ed. Neil PaynterWednesday 30 November
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:4-7
Is it not the essence of prayer – to see the One who is always near, and who is constantly inviting us, in gentle compassion, to come back to our inheritance as a human being made in the divine image? Peter Millar in "Growing Hope", ed. Neil Paynter
Thursday 1 December
Jesus said to his disciples; "in those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see "the Son of Man coming in clouds" with great power and glory. Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven. Mark 13:24-27
For the Christian, the seeming distress of the days in which we live should not be a cause for pessimism; they are rather a loud overture of some new and wondrous Revelation . . . We believe not that God is trying to say something to us all above the storms of our present distress, rather that it is the storm that is his voice. George MacLeod in "Growing Hope", ed. Neil Paynter
Friday 2 December
A voice cries out: "In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain shall be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken." Isaiah 40:3-5
A boy threw a stone at a stained-glass window of the incarnation. It nicked out the ‘E’ in the word HIGHEST in the text GLORY TO GOD IN THE HIGHEST. Thus, till it was unfortunately mended, it read, GLORY TO GOD IN THE HIGH ST. At least the mended E might have been contrived on a swivel so that in a high wind it would have been impossible to see which way it read. Such is the genius, and the offence, of the Christian revelation. Holiness, salvation, glory are all come down to earth in Jesus Christ our Lord. George MacLeod in "Growing Hope", ed. Neil Paynter
Saturday 3 December
When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, Jesus said, ‘As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.’
They asked him, ‘Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?’ And he said, ‘Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, "I am he!" and, "The time is near!" Do not go after them.
‘When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end will not follow immediately.’ Then he said to them, ‘Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven. Luke 21:5-11
We alone can devalue gold
by not caring
if it falls or rises
in the market place.
Whenever there is gold
there is a chain, you know,
and if your chain
is gold
so much the worse for you.
Feathers, shells
and sea-shaped stones
are all as rare.
This could be our revolution:
To love what is plentiful
as much as
what’s scarce.
Alice Walker in "Growing Hope", ed. Neil Paynter
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