Author: Tim Morgan

“Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of your kingdom is a scepter of uprightness” (Psalm 45:6).

The Lord is coming. Incline your ear (Psalm 45:10). He is speaking his word into the world. No other word will suffice for his purposes. The Lord’s own arm must bring us salvation (Isaiah 59:16). Our words fall silent in but a moment. They are muted by his wrath (Isaiah 59:18).

The Lord’s word, however, endures. It’s enthroned in victory from age to age. The reality of its pronouncement is permanent. As words dissipate into the air and worlds shatter upon their times, God’s word fills the earth. As Jesus draws near, let us forget our self-centered way of life, our inheritance from the world (Psalm 45:10); let us bow down, submit ourselves to the lord (Psalm 45:11; Philippians 2:10); let us prepare our lips for the confession of his lordship (Philippians 2:11).

This Christmas Eve, “have this mind among yourselves, which is your in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5). Consider his humiliation and exaltation, the form of Christian life. Have regard for his way, the word with which God has claimed our world. Revere his obedience and lordship, inclining your ear to Christ in faith. Dispose yourself like the psalmist: “My heart overflows with a pleasing theme; I address my verses to the king; my tongue is like the pen of a ready scribe” (Psalm 45:1).

Further Reading: Psalm 45; Isaiah 59:15b-21; Philippians 2:5-11

Written by Guest House Theologian, Tim Morgan. These reflections are a complimentary addition to our Advent Bags.

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“Turn again, O God of hosts! Look down from heaven, and see; have regard for this vine, the stock that your right hand planted, and for the son whom you made strong for yourself” (Psalm 80:15).

Will God finish the work which he has begun in us? Have our errant ways exhausted his mercy? Were the glimpses of his work which we were afforded flights of naive passion? Were we an investment ill-made? All that power, all that light, the warmth of companionship, God the wind behind our back, Christ the hand upon our shoulder—it’s all gone. What are we left with?

The psalmist writes, “O Lord God of hosts, how long will you be angry with your people’s prayers? You have fed them with the bread of tears and given them tears to drink in full measure. You make us an object of contention for our neighbors, and our enemies laugh among us” (Psalm 80:6). Scripture over and over directs us to the certainty of God’s work in the world. It’s happening. God’s doing it. However, part and parcel with the situation we’re in before the coming Jesus is the ambiguity and confusion of prayers apparently unheard, a world apparently closed, the intervals between our sobs and groans apparently filled with silence. Our hearts shake “as the trees of the forest shake before the wind” (Isaiah 7:2). We’re “tossed to and fro by the waves” (Ephesians 4:14). We keep sending out a dove, to see if the waters have “subsided from the face of the ground,” but the dove finds “no place to set her foot” (Genesis 8:8-9).

The psalmist writes, “Restore us, O Lord God of hosts! Let your face shine, that we may be saved” (Psalm 80:19). This desperate plea expresses the heart of our situation. We appear abandoned. God’s holy vine, his people, appears torn apart: “They have burned it with fire; they have cut it down” (Psalm 80:16); “the Lord will bring upon you and upon your people and upon your father’s house such days as have not come since the day that Ephraim departed from Judah” (Isaiah 7:17). Here, in the silence, in the great tribulation, God speaks his word to us: “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20; see Matthew 1:22). God’s word, his transparency in our ambiguity, his clarity in our confusion, is Immanuel. The birth of Jesus makes good on God’s promises; it gets us in on what God’s been doing this whole time (Romans 1:1-2). God has notabandoned his investment. He has been working in us. His mercy is inexhaustible. As the apostle Paul writes, “I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6). When we are surrounded and indwelt by the acute tragedy of this life, we have God’s word who “was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 1:4). This power, which brings life from death and holiness from depravity, is what’s at work in our blindness, what’s speaking in our deafness. It’s the power that’s at work in us—now!

Today, I’d ask you to sit with a worthy saying: “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you” (Romans 8:11). This Spirit, from whom Immanuel comes (Matthew 1:20) amidst the question mark of our lives and by whom Immanuel is raised from the question mark at the end of our lives, is “the guarantee of our inheritance” (Ephesians 1:13), the presence of God’s future transparency, his future clarity in the coming Jesus.

Further Reading: Psalm 80; Isaiah 7:10-16; Romans 1:1-7; Matthew 1:18-25

Written by Guest House Theologian, Tim Morgan. These reflections are a complimentary addition to our Advent Blend Bags. 

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More Advent reflections can be found here.

“Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy. For water break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; in the haunt of jackals, where they lie down, the grass shall become reeds and rushes” (Isaiah 35:5-7).

The birth of Jesus is God’s gift of immeasurable riches. It’s form and plenty to a submerged, desolate earth (Genesis 1:2). It’s the joy of conception to a barren womb (Genesis 11:30; 21:1-2). It’s the open air of liberty to an enslaved people (Exodus 15:1-18). The apostle Paul writes that God “has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 1:2) and that in Christ “we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us” (Ephesians 1:7-8). Where our world has named scarcity “abundance” and nothing “plenty,” Christ declares its true name (Revelation 2:17). The psalmist tells us that God provides justice for the oppressed, food for the hungry, freedom for the prisoner, sight for the blind, exaltation for the lowly, protection for those far from home, and support for those who have none (Psalm 146:7-9). In the birth of Christ, God fills his world with life, teeming, brimming, and spilling over with life upon life; he pours forth everything of his world into our world for us to enjoy; he fills us with his riches, treasures of true life which our souls take hold of by faith (1 Timothy 6:17-18).

John the Baptist’s ministry was characterized by restraint and dearth, the simplicity and single-mindedness of prophetic word. He “came neither eating nor drinking” (Matthew 11:18; this was his proper ministry as Forerunner). Jesus, on the other hand, “came eating and drinking” (Matthew 11:19). However, his wealth (indeed, his food; see John 4:32) was not that of “kings’ houses” (Matthew 11:8). Rather, “the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them” (Matthew 11:5). Rather than in earthly goods, Christ’s riches consist in wisdom and knowledge (Colossians 2:3), in “the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 11:11).

These “riches” aren’t always easy to see. Our vision is often crowded by scenes of earthly resource or poverty, indulgence or desperation. Amid the earth’s bounty, however, Jesus lays “the Way of Holiness,” the sacred highway down which his people parade in song toward God’s city (Isaiah 35:8-10). The psalmist writes, “Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation” and “the way of the wicked he brings to ruin” (Psalm 146:3, 9). Like a farmer waiting patiently for his harvest, God’s people wait patiently for “the coming of the Lord” (James 5:7). Like the prophets, including John the Baptist, we wait in suffering and patience for the transparency of the full measure of his riches before our eyes (Matthew 11:3; James 5:10), the fruition of God’s purpose (James 5:11).

Today, I’d ask you to consider the wealth of God’s kingdom—and what sort of wealth it is! In Scripture, in the Church, in what God’s doing in the world, we’re given an abundance: an abundance of images for us to behold, of direction for us to follow, of meaning for us to contemplate, and finally of God’s own life for us to live within (Acts 17:24-28). As James puts it, riches rot, clothes are eaten by moths, gold and silver corrode, and all these things in which we trust testify against us in judgment (James 5:2-5). While “we brought nothing into the world and we cannot take anything out of world” (1 Timothy 6:7), we await the appearing of Jesus “who alone has immortality,” whose riches do not fade (1 Timothy 6:16).

Further Reading: Psalm 146:4-9; Isaiah 35:1-10; James 5:7-10; Matthew 11:2-11

Written by Guest House Theologian, Tim Morgan. These reflections are a complimentary addition to our Advent Blend Bags. 

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More Advent reflections can be found here.