Advent

 

Helen Harvey Wright write:

The Bible reading for the first Sunday in Advent, Isaiah 64.1-9 seems very fierce.

“O that you would tear open the heavens and come down.”  We are put firmly in our place by the time we reach verse 6. “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth.”

 

But the prophet tells us a comforting truth near the end of the reading.  “Yet, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.”

 

During this Advent time we can prepare ourselves spiritually.  What a wonderful thought that our Father God can mould us and make us into the work of his hand, beautiful in his sight, ready to welcome the coming of the Christ Child into our lives.

 

I found this prayer written by Richard Lyall, thinking about Isaiah 64. useful in helping to understand how the reading can be used.  It is entitled “Come Down,” and a suitable start for our Advent journey.

  

Into our emptiness,

into our brokenness:  Lord, come down.

 

Into our loneliness,

into our neediness:  Lord, come down.

 

Into our busyness

and our distractedness:  Lord, come down.

 

Into our chaos

and our unsettledness:  Lord, come down.

 

Into our shallowness

and our small-mindedness:  Lord, come down.

 

Into our past

and into our present:  Lord, come down.

 

Into our future

with all its uncertainty:  Lord, rend the heavens and come down. 

© Richard Lyall/engageworship.org

 

 

 

Congratulations to Helen on her special Birthday today. 

' You are never too old to set another goal, to dream a new dream' CS Lewis