3 posts tagged “devotional”
I love Christmas. Its like an old friend: it has its faults, to be sure, but when you’re reunited with her after not seeing her for a while, all you can think about is catching up on an old conversation. Then, of course, after the first glow, reality sets in and we have to reckon with the darker side of our relationship: busy schedules, traffic, stretched budgets, and, for some of us, reminders old heart aches and breaks.
Since then our reality so rarely doesn’t live up to the rhetoric, it is good to be encouraged to hang in there and persevere in keeping Jesus, the Christ in the holiday, front and center in our otherwise often conflicted and confused thoughts and feelings during this time of year.
Who better to bring that reminder than Old Simeon, a first century Jewish prophet whose perseverance through years and years of waiting finally paid off? Who better than Simeon, ancient visionary to whom God Himself had spoken.
God’s message to the old Mystic, Simeon, was something like being told, “Mr. Henry, you’re the proud father of a brand new baby boy! But I’m not going to tell you when. Just hang out in the hospital waiting room for the next thirty years; it’ll eventually happen.”
Simeon would see with his own eyes the Redeemer that God’s people had hoped for for thousands of years: the Savior of the World. But he didn’t know when.
What would this have been like?
Day after day, Simeon, a loyal God-listener went to the Jewish temple checking his mailbox for the message that God’s Good Word had finally arrived.
What did he say when the package finally arrived? Read it for yourself, from Luke 2. Read it carefully and you can almost taste the relief in his soul; it is palpable:
29 “Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace,
according to your word;
30 for my eyes have seen your salvation
31 that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
and for glory to your people Israel.”
Reading today I came across an article that described how we can manage trials and changes (most of which come unexpectedly into our lives). The advice given was to have a heart attack at the beginning of each day--i.e., allowing God's truth, God's will, to conform our hearts and desires to Himself.
Besides reminding me that I need to come to my daily reading of Scripture with this kind of expectant attitude, it also reminded me why I like Luther so much, because he quoted Luther's own version of what he called a heart attack: "God, forgive me for the best deeds I'm about to commit."
Ah, Brother Martin, bless you!
This little book (it is only sixty pages) has some powerful, if mystical, challenges to the contemporary mode of living out the Christian faith. Vanier writes with the simplicity of Brother Lawrence, and the conviction of Rich Mullins. It is a Catholic book in the sense that it moves in that style of devotional literature.
But it is also catholic inasmuch as it calls for a level of counter-cultural devotion that is lacking among many Protestants in our generation, myself included.
What I like most about the book, however, is the insight into the connection between the Gospel and poverty. Vanier writes:
"People may come to our communities because they want to serve the poor; they will only stay once they have discovered that they themselves are the poor. And then they discover something extraordinary: that Jesus came to bring the good news to the poor, not to those who serve the poor! I think we can only truly experience the presence of God, meet Jesus, receive the good news, in and through our own poverty, because the kingdom of God belongs to the poor, the poor in spirit, the poor who are crying out for love." (p. 20)
Poverty and Gospel Riches go hand in hand. I thank God for this little work and commend it to my friends and readers.
