Daily Readings for Week 2 (Dec. 14 - Dec. 20)

*These are all the scriptures referenced in the Advent Reading for Week 2.

Day 1

Read Luke 2:8-9

Let’s talk about the social standing of a shepherd in ancient Israel.  Shepherding was hard work, manual labor, exposure to the sun, the wind, the rain, and a measure of expendability–the first line of defense against predators like bears and lions.  Shepherding was a menial and a never-ending task, pulling night shifts, no holidays.  Sheep need constant tending. It’s not unusual that there were shepherds pulling an all-nighter in the fields near Bethlehem the night Jesus was born.  It’s very unusual that an angel messenger from the Lord crossed from heaven to earth, still dripping with heaven’s glory, to speak to these shepherds.  That would be unusual circumstances, to say the least, for any human beings.  But we might have expected God to announce the birth of his son to a group with more scriptural knowledge, more theological training, more credibility as witnesses.  And yet, he chose shepherds, and they were not expecting this honor.  Their understanding of their lack of worth, of their lack of holiness made them react to God’s messenger with terror.  But they were about to find out, they had no reason for terror.

What is it about your present circumstances that makes it seem unlikely that the Lord would single you out and speak to you in a special way?  Do you feel like God is more likely to use someone other than you to show how he comes and lives among us, offering to become part of our lives in the here and now?  Ask God to show you how he may be choosing to speak to you, specifically.  Ask him to help you overcome any fear you may have about interacting with him.  Listen for his reassuring voice reminding you–who he chooses to speak to does not always match our expectations.

Day 2

Read Luke 2:10-14

The angel told the terrified shepherds that, against all instincts, against all odds, they actually did not need to be afraid of what would move God to send a message to them.  They could probably think of so many reasons they should be afraid of God’s judgement.  And the angel kind of confirms that when he says that the good news is that God is sending a savior (which wouldn’t matter if you didn’t need saving).  Not that God was sending a savior someday, like the prophets said so many times.  No, the angel says, it has happened!  The Savior has been sent–now.  He’s here, very nearby.  In the City of David. God graciously had the angel give very specific directions about how to recognize this Savior, his son.  And then, the real kicker.  When a multitude of angels filled up the sky singing praises to God, they wrapped it up by saying “Peace among those with whom he is well-pleased.”  It seems pretty clear that these shepherds who were told they didn’t need to be afraid, the ones who were chosen to receive this first news, qualified as the ones with whom God was well-pleased.  What a surprise!  What a relieving, joyful surprise!

Ask the Lord to help you be both aware of your absolute need for him and aware of how he is specifically working out his saving of you today.  Ask him to open your eyes to his nearness and involvement in the circumstances very near you.  If you have surrendered your life to him, ask him to help you know the reality that he is well-pleased with you, and ask him to reveal his peace in the midst of your life in the here and now.

Day 3

Read Luke 2:15-20 

Here’s the thing: the shepherds did not stop to contemplate what the angel had said or to weigh the pros and cons of following his directions.  They just went, immediately, to see Jesus.  To see what the Lord had done, was doing!  And they were able to recognize the Lord’s work with great confidence because God had told them what it would look like.  Again, how gracious of the Lord, knowing the shepherds would need a pretty specific description to understand that they were seeing God’s son when they found that stable.  Now, when they encountered the odd circumstance of a baby lying in a feeding manger, they would be able to know it was God at work.  Of course they couldn’t stop talking about this!  Of course they had to tell this story over and over!  And as they went back to their necessary jobs, their hard, dirty work, they kept praising God for all they had heard and seen.  They dwelt in the overwhelmingness of it all.  They revelled in God’s glory. 

Is there a nudge or direction the Lord is giving you? A person to talk to, a book to read, an opportunity for giving or serving that he seems to be putting before you?  Could following his direction put you in a place to see how he is working, either in your life or in the lives of people around you?  How could you be like the shepherds and go looking for the Lord, keeping your eyes peeled, keeping your heart ready to recognize his work and to praise him for it?  Ask the Lord to bring to mind clear experiences you’ve had with him, or to bring you into new experiences with him, and ask him to help your mind and heart keep coming back to the joy of those experiences with him.

Day 4

Read I Samuel 16:4-13

Hundreds and hundreds of years before the angels visited the shepherds, God told the prophet Samuel it was time to anoint a new king of Israel.  The first king, the strong warrior Saul, had disobeyed the Lord too many times and couldn’t be trusted to lead God’s people.  So God sent Samuel to a little place called Bethlehem, to see a man named Jesse because one of his sons was God’s chosen to be the next king.  Samuel tried to guess God’s choice, thinking surely it was the strapping, handsome, oldest son, Eliab.  God said no–you don’t see what I see.  Like every human ever, Samuel made decisions, formed judgements, decided value based on what he could see.  God made very clear that he could see better, truer.  God chose the youngest son, the one they finally agreed to call in from his job out in the fields tending the sheep, doing the grunt work.  In David, God saw a heart that wanted him.  He saw a man who was after God’s own heart–pursuing the heart of God, and in that, reflecting and looking like God’s heart.   

It’s interesting that, at Jesus’ birth, the angels told the shepherds that they would find Jesus in the City of David.  They could have called it Bethlehem, but instead they used its nickname, the City of David, that linked this newborn Messiah to a king who started as a humble shepherd. And he announced his birth to unremarkable-seeming shepherds–the ones he was well-pleased with.  

Ask the Lord to help you want him and his love more than anything–to make you a man or woman who is pursuing God’s own heart.  Ask him to help you learn to disregard how others judge you from your outward appearance (for better or for worse), and ask him to make your heart, your desires, even your feelings look like his.  Just like children look or act like their father and we say they “take after” him, ask God to make your heart look like his, so that in this way, too, you can be a man or woman who takes after God’s own heart.  Ask him to help you experience the joy of discovering his affection for you. 

Day 5

Read Psalm 30

That shepherd that Bethlehem is nicknamed after, David, he wrote songs.  This is one of them, and it talks about this week’s theme–joy.  “Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes in the morning.” This was David’s experience, and most of us can relate.  We have seasons of sadness, sometimes seasons of incredibly heavy grief.  But they are not forever.  The Lord is near when we are weeping, and he doesn’t let it last forever.  Like David said, God loosens our sackcloth, the symbol of the mourning and sadness that can have such a stranglehold on us.  God loosens it and invites us to let go of it, to let it fall away.  And in its place, he wraps us up in gladness, and we can breathe again.  Our gladness can bring glory to him.  Our gladness can be our praise.  He invites us to let our sadness, our mourning, our grief fall away and he wants us to know that our gladness at the relief and freedom is beautiful and honoring to him.

Is there a sadness or mourning (of a person, a relationship, a plan or dream) that has bound you up, caused you to feel like weeping?  Ask the Lord to show you if this is the time he is releasing you from that.  Ask him to help you see his invitation to leave that season behind.  Ask him to help you embrace the gladness he would give you, and to help you know how that gladness brings honor and glory to him.