Advent, Sunday 1: Hope
For Hope, we read this morning in church Psalm 130. This year I will post for each Sunday rather than every day of Advent, as in the past two years.
Out of the depths I have cried to You, O Lord;
2 Lord, hear my voice!
Let Your ears be attentive
To the voice of my supplications.
3 If You, Lord, should mark iniquities,
O Lord, who could stand?
4 But there is forgiveness with You,
That You may be feared.
5 I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
And in His word I do hope.
6 My soul waits for the Lord
More than those who watch for the morning—
Yes, more than those who watch for the morning.
7 O Israel, hope in the Lord;
For with the Lord there is mercy,
And with Him is abundant redemption.
8 And He shall redeem Israel
From all his iniquities.
Our pastor this morning compared the Jews in
the Old Testament to children waiting for Christmas for years and years
and years. It reminded me of the line in The Lion, the Witch, and Wardrobe: "In Narnia it was always winter but never Christmas."
I sought for an image of hope but most were cliched. This painting by George Frederick Watts appealed to me in regard to hope in the Old Testament period, especially between Malachi and Matthew. There may not have been much to go on for hope, at least in visible terms; the Israelites had the recorded promises of God and traditions. In this image she is blinded or blindfolded, and there is only one string on the lyre--can't see and not much to depend on. I liked this better than pictures of sunrises and hikers on summits.
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