Advent Devotion - Day 27

Join us through this special time of Advent as we dive deeper into the Word of God. Each day, we will pray and reflect on a different passage from Scripture. Daily Readings are from the Revised Common Lectionary Daily Readings, and reflections are written by our church staff.

Leave me alone with God as much as may be. As the tide draws the waters close in upon the shore, make me an island, set apart, alone with you, God, holy to you.

Then with the turning of the tide prepare me to carry your presence to the busy world beyond, the world that rushes in on me till the waters come again and fold me back to you.

Amen.    

St Aiden (Died 651)

2 Samuel 7:23-29

Who is like your people, like Israel? Is there another nation on earth whose God went to redeem it as a people and to make a name for himself, doing great and awesome things, driving out nations and their gods before your people, whom you redeemed for yourself from Egypt?

And you established your people Israel for yourself to be your people forever, and you, O Lord, became their God. And now, O Lord God, as for the word that you have spoken concerning your servant and concerning his house, confirm it forever; do as you have promised. Thus your name will be magnified forever in the saying, ‘The Lord of hosts is God over Israel,’ and the house of your servant David will be established before you. For you, O Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, have made this revelation to your servant, saying, ‘I will build you a house’; therefore your servant has found the courage to pray this prayer to you.

And now, O Lord God, you are God, and your words are true, and you have promised this good thing to your servant; now, therefore, may it please you to bless the house of your servant so that it may continue forever before you, for you, O Lord God, have spoken, and with your blessing shall the house of your servant be blessed forever.”

I am a fan of ancient prayers and writings of the Church, such as the prayer of St. Aiden above. We want to think we are an advanced people, wise beyond the vision of our forbearers. But when we sit with the words of this Irish monk and missionary written some fourteen centuries prior as he seeks to deal with the “busy world” around him, we recognize the more things change, the more they stay the same. There is a gap between St. Aiden and us—scientific, technological, philosophical. But the only gap that genuinely matters is between a holy and righteous God and a broken, sin-stained world he seeks to redeem.

We, as God’s children, the Church, have been grafted into a story that has been unfolding for millennia. From that initial call of Abraham in Genesis 12, as God blessed him that he might in turn be a blessing to the world, this drama rolls across the ages. This story, staggering in scope and scale, consumes all stories as God works to reconcile all creation unto himself. It is within this narrative that our individual lives find purpose and meaning. Each of us, and all of us, have a role to play.

The tidal rhythms described by St. Aiden as God draws us close to be filled and refreshed are soon enough reversed as we are swept into the world around us: each bearing the fragrance of the Holy One. God has blessed his house into eternity that this cycle may repeat as we are filled to be emptied for the sake of the world that God so loves. Lord Jesus, let us be your instruments of salvation.

Are you living into the blessing you have been given? Are you fighting God’s tides within your life, or are you allowing him to carry you where he will, when he will, for the purposes he wills?