The Lavishness of Your Shepherd’s Care

This Advent the world is grieving and tired. I hear so many people say they just want to lay down and binge watch Netflix until the world begins to right again. Moving toward the long dark nights of Winter without a solution to Covid19, without a vaccine, sends some of us scurrying for coping mechanisms. I want to say I’ve heard you and I understand. Grieving IS exhausting work. Rest. 

We are in desperate need of our Messiah. Of a glimmer of hope. 

This Advent I feel a bit of kinship with the people of Israel who hadn’t heard from God for 400 years. Christ was born into a world that was also struggling to maintain hope. They must have had so many questions: Where was God? Did he care? Did He remember his promises? Maybe they had even forgotten how to long for their Messiah.  

Into the silence a few words HAD been whispered, one to Simeon who is the personification of what Advent is about: the scriptures say “he was waiting for the consolation of Israel.”  Waiting. It’s a word we’re all too familiar with. The Holy Spirit had whispered to Simeon that he would not see death before he had seen the Messiah. When Jesus was brought into the temple by Mary and Joseph on the eighth day after his birth, Simeon took him into his arms and said, “My eyes have seen our salvation.”

That’s what I want to do this Advent in the middle of all this heavy waiting, gaze on Jesus, and look upon our salvation. Just look and look and look.

You’re welcome to come with me. All you have to do is push play. You don’t even have to get out from under the covers. I’ve put together 16 episodes of an Advent journey around the scriptures and music of Handel’s Messiah. Go to summerjoygross.com for more information. What follows is an example of what you’ll hear every morning when you open your inbox.

Click here for to learn more about the Advent Audio Series, Behold Your God, and sign up to receive an infusion of hope delivered to your inbox.