November 29, 2015
Isaiah 64:4
From ages past no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who works for those who wait for him.
WELCOME TO ADVENT
I don’t deny that there should be priests to remind men that they will one day die. I only say it is necessary to have another kind of priests, called poets, actually to remind men that they are not dead yet.
—G. K. Chesterton
It’s time to return to Advent.
It’s time to give prophets a hearing again, listening with the playful intensity of a child hearing a story for the first time.
It’s time to slow down long enough to amble through the intolerable ambiguity of poems, submitting to a meaning we cannot comprehend until we surrender our need to control it.
It’s time to begin again, only this time with the end in sight, to lift our eyes first to the clouds on which he will come, before we fix them on the star of his first arrival.
It’s time to teach our children that the grass will wither and the flower will fade but the Word of the Lord will endure forever.
Advent reminds us of a certain event, a day on the horizon of the future which will reorder every last molecule of the universe. This event is the second coming of Jesus Christ. Despite all the uncertainties of timing, this event is a fixed certainty. The message of the gospel: Do not be afraid. Be prepared. -jd walt
WELCOME TO ADVENT AND A CHANGE OF PLANS:
As you are aware, I had planned for us to work through James in the days of Advent leading up to Christmas. As I got into the text, I had an “if the Lord wills” moment—the kind I have written about as recently as a few days ago. It did not seem right to me and to the Holy Spirit to engage such a jarring text for the season of Advent. Don’t get me wrong. Advent should be a bit jarring yet in a different kind of way.
Then it hit me—last year I published an Advent book that I’ve not yet shared on the Daily Text. Small problem. I can’t just run the whole book on the Daily Text as thousands of people out there have purchased the book. At the same time, I really want you, the Daily Text community, to work through what I consider to be the best insight I have in this essential season for the Church.
Here’s my proposal. Beginning today and running through next Saturday I will run the first week of entries from my book, Not Yet Christmas: It’s Time for Advent, here on the Daily Text. Each of the twenty-five days offers a carefully chosen text from the Bible, each of which the church has read for many centuries during the season of Advent. Following the text, there is a short bit of narration designed to steadily guide the reader along the path of pilgrimage, day by day. Finally, each day closes with a prayer in the form of a poem. I will serve as the narrator. My friend, Dave Harrity, has carefully curated a host of award-winning poets to provide our prayers. The arrangement aims to slow us down, to break pace with the normal routine. We are creating space to behold, to hear a fresh word from the Holy Spirit, to catch a glimpse of a new horizon, to sing the song of the future.
Now, I would like to ask something of you. Would you purchase the book and work through it the rest of the way? If you order it now, you should have it in time for next Sunday. Of course I’m going to give you the ultimate insider Daily Text Nation Deal. Enter the code DTADVENT and get 25% off the book (print or electronic). If you can’t afford that email me and I will send you a copy on the house.
This means the Daily Text (online post + email) will go quiet beginning December 6 through Christmas Day and returning on December 26. We will get to James in a most appropriate fashion, beginning on January 1.
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J.D. Walt serves as Seedbed’s Sower in Chief. jd.walt@seedbed.com.