Day 27 - Friday, December 24
CHRISTMAS EVE 
Title: ALL FLESH WILL SEE IT TOGETHER
Scripture: Isaiah 40:1-11 

“Comfort, yes, comfort My people!” says your God. “Speak comfort to Jerusalem, and cry out to her, that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned; for she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.” The voice of one crying in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and hill brought low; the crooked places shall be made straight and the rough places smooth; the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

The voice said, “Cry out!” and he said, “What shall I cry?” “All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, because the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.”

O Zion, you who bring good tidings get up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, you who bring good tidings, lift up your voice with strength, lift it up, be not afraid; say to the cities of Judah, “Behold your God!” Behold, the Lord God shall come with a strong hand, and His arm shall rule for Him; behold, His reward is with Him, and His work before Him. He will feed His flock like a shepherd; He will gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom, and gently lead those who are with young.

Poetry:
Let Evening Come
by Jane Kenyon

Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving   
up the bales as the sun moves down.

Let the cricket take up chafing   
as a woman takes up her needles   
and her yarn. Let evening come.

Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned   
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.

Let the fox go back to its sandy den.   
Let the wind die down. Let the shed   
go black inside. Let evening come.

To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop   
in the oats, to air in the lung   
let evening come.

Let it come, as it will, and don’t   
be afraid. God does not leave us   
comfortless, so let evening come.

THE LORD OF TIME

Over breakfast, I check the series of appointments scheduled for my day. I’m on time to pick up the kids. I’m running late to my Zoom meeting. My social media feed reminds me of a family birthday party from three years ago.

What shapes our understanding of time as Christians?

Of course, as embodied creatures, we live under the same reality of time as everyone else. We set our clocks back (or forward) like others. Our taxes are due on the same day. We have parent-teacher conferences, trash pick-up days, doctor’s appointments, and church services that rely on an agreed upon understanding that this is when such-and-such will take place.

And yet, as followers of Christ, our understanding of time is – or should be – quite different than worldly views. For Christians, time is part of God’s good creation and therefore falls under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, through whom all things were made (Jn 1:10; Col 1:16; Heb 1:2). Thus, it is the season of Advent and our collective anticipation of Christ’s birth, not January 1, that marks the beginning of the Christian year. In today’s world, this practice is almost an act of defiance. No, my calendar is not determined by the next mattress sale, soccer tryouts, or the first snowfall. My time is marked by the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

As this Advent season draws to a close, we are led to anticipate the arrival of the Christ child through the artwork of Lyuba Yatskiv, a Ukrainian artist. She offers a depiction of Mary with the infant Jesus that stands in the tradition of Byzantine iconography. But there is something more going on here. In the palm of his hand, Jesus holds a lamb. Already, here at the affirmation of his birth, we find a foreshadowing of his death. The Christ child’s arrival is rightly heralded with proclamations of “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” or Graham Sparkman’s evocative “From the Clear Blue Sky.” Yet that same child will, on another day, hang upon a cross as the Lamb of God whose blood is poured out for our salvation. Even in swaddling clothes, he is the Lord of time.

On this Christmas Eve, we praise God, for we witness the fulfillment of the promise found in Isaiah’s prophetic words. We take comfort in the fact that the eternal Son became incarnate. We take comfort in the fact that he has come into this world, which is so often a series of winding, bumpy roads, in order to make a straight, smooth path. We take comfort in the fact that he bound himself to time, becoming truly human. And we can also take comfort in the fact that Christ is the Lord of time – not just of Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, but of all time. Indeed, as the eternal Son and Word of God, he is the Lord of the “time before time” and the “time after time.”

So, in the words of American poet Jane Kenyon, we can say, “let evening come.” Yes, let evening come. Let evening come because we know what awaits us in the morning. Let evening come because our Lord is the Lord of time.

Prayer:
God and Father of all, who sent your Son into the world,
    we praise you. 
 Lord Jesus Christ, who took on human flesh and bound yourself to time,
            we praise you. 
 Holy Spirit, who brings comfort to an afflicted people,
            we praise you. 
 Help us, Lord, this season and always, to see your revelation.
 Help us, Lord, today and every day, to seek the Christ child.

We pray in the name of Jesus Christ and to the glory of the one God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Amen.

Devotion Author:
Rev. Dr. David McNutt
Associate Editor at IVP Academic
Professor of Theology and Philosophical Aesthetics
Wheaton College
Wheaton, Illinois

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