Editor's note: "A pandemic advent: the arrival of a Savior for all" is a sampling of biblical meditations composed by members of the Concordia University Ann Arbor community. It is our prayer that you will take time during the Advent season to read and reflect upon God's Word and await the coming of Jesus with newfound anticipation and zeal through the Holy Spirit.
December 4 – A Christian’s wish list
Isaiah 10:12–27a, 33–34, 2 Peter 1:1–21
Each of us experiences many seasons of life—hills and valleys alike. The ongoing COVID crisis, punctuated as it has been by cultural, economic, and governmental glitches, may cause all of us at times to struggle with how to “get into Christmas spirit.” Praise God we have been blessed by this Advent season of preparation, and today’s readings from Isaiah 10 and 2 Peter 1 give us some great reminders of how to face Christmas or any other season, hill, or valley in our lives.
More than thirty years ago, David Foster and Linda Thompson-Jenner penned Grown Up Christmas List, which offered a heartfelt wish list of what one hoped to find on Christmas morning:
No more lives torn apart
That wars would never start
And time would heal all hearts Everyone would have a friend And right would always win
And love would never end
This is my grown-up Christmas list
While that sentiment is sweet and certainly brings a tear to my eye each year I hear it played, this Christmas, like each year, we will receive our swaddled Savior. Remembering His omnipotence should be a special gift we savor every day of the year. In analyzing the Isaiah 10 text, Matthew Henry (1995) writes, When God brings his people into trouble, it is to bring sin to their remembrance and humble them and to awaken them to a sense of their duty…God’s anger against his people if but for a moment; and when that is turned from us, we need not fear the fury of man. The rod with which he corrected his people, shall not only be laid aside, but thrown into the fire. No matter what we face this side of heaven, God is bigger. What a daily gift and blessing!
Moreover, through the Holy Spirit, we are gifted with faith, goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, and love. This “wish list” from 2 Peter 1 puts me and every other believer in the Christmas Spirit—literally. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Peter 1:8).
DR. MICHAEL UDEN is the Vice Provost of Student Enrollment and Engagement and has served at Concordia since 1998
View a full schedule of “The arrival of a Savior for all” readings here.
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