December 11: An Unconditional Invitation to Embrace Christ
♫ Music:
Day 9 - Monday, December 11
Title: AN UNCONDITIONAL INVITATION TO EMBRACE CHRIST
Scripture #1: Isaiah 55:1–5 (NKJV)
“Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat. Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and let your soul delight itself in abundance. Incline your ear, and come to Me. Hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you—the sure mercies of David. Indeed I have given Him as a witness to the people, a leader and commander for the people. Surely you shall call a nation you do not know, and nations who do not know you shall run to you, because of the Lord your God, and the Holy One of Israel; for He has glorified you.”
Scripture #2: Isaiah 44:3–4 (NKJV)
For I will pour water on him who is thirsty, and floods on the dry ground; I will pour My Spirit on your descendants, and My blessing on your offspring; they will spring up among the grass like willows by the watercourses.
Poetry & Poet:
“At the River Clarion (1)”
by Mary Oliver
I don’t know who God is exactly.
But I’ll tell you this.
I was sitting in the river named Clarion, on a water
splashed stone
and all afternoon I listened to the voices of the
river talking.
Whenever the water struck a stone it had something
to say,
and the water itself, and even the mosses trailing
under the water.
And slowly, very slowly, it became clear to me what
they were saying.
Said the river I am part of holiness.
And I too, said the stone. And I too, whispered the
moss beneath the water.
I’d been to the river before, a few times.
Don’t blame the river that nothing happened quickly.
You don’t hear such voices in an hour or a day.
You don’t hear them at all if selfhood has stuffed
your ears.
And it’s difficult to hear anything anyway, through all
the traffic, the ambition.
AN UNCONDITIONAL INVITATION TO EMBRACE CHRIST
When I was a child, my family lived close to my grandparents. We’d drive up to Costa Mesa, California for visits. I remember my grandpa would walk out of their mid-century house onto the flat concrete driveway to give my family hugs as we emerged from the car. I loved those hugs. Yet I had to brace for them, particularly when I was about 7-9 years old. You see, at those ages I was just tall enough to come up to his belly, and when he’d pull me in tight for his embrace, my cheek would get pressed up against the hard buttons of his shirt stretched across his round stomach. I’d feel a sharp pain from the small button, but I didn’t mind enough to tell him. I like getting his hugs anyway, feeling the larger love and affection.
In today's Scriptures, poem, art, and music, we are invited to “come to the waters.” We can see the water and almost hear it. And this is where we can find Jesus, the one symbolized in their flow, the one who moves to embrace us. Looking at Hiroshi Senjou’s painting and listening to the beautiful and ethereal cascading lines of music, or pausing for a moment at Mary Oliver’s poem, we can imagine Jesus as the one who moves toward us and around us, like water, enveloping us into himself and into his family. Advent is the very anticipation of him coming to us in this way, the unconditional invitation to receive the embrace of Jesus as if water.
And this brings me back to how my grandpa would move toward me. He would move toward my family getting out of our car like water. That button on one of his shirts would press deep into my cheek. Now looking back, I suspect I would walk into the house with a mark on my face that said, “Grandpa loves me.” And so too, the flow of Jesus doesn’t simply envelope us, it also marks us.
When we receive Christ, we get to be called God’s own, to have the name of Jesus imparted to us, to have it written on our hands as Isaiah writes. There is a reason we are baptized into him. Just like those hugs from my grandpa that marked my cheek, and now mark my memories, the embrace of Christ welcomes us into belonging and family.
Prayer:
Jesus, thank you for coming to me like water. Thank you that I can simply receive the flow of your embrace, an embrace that itself has been marked by pain so that I could be more fully called a child of God. Today, help me to be present to your Holy Spirit and aware of your divine embrace.
Amen
Steven Homestead
Artist, Composer, Writer, and Curator
For more information about the artwork, music, and poetry selected for this day, we have provided resources under the “About” tab located next to the “Devotional” tab.
About the Art:
Waterfall
Hiroshi Senju
2016
Acrylic and fluorescent pigments on Japanese mulberry paper
51 x 64 in.
About the Artist:
Hiroshi Senju (b. 1958) is a Japanese Nihonga painter known for his large-scale waterfall paintings. He completed a B.F.A. at the Tokyo University of the Arts in 1982. He completed a M.F.A. program in fine arts at Tokyo University of the Arts in 1984. He completed the doctoral course at Tokyo University of the Arts in 1987. His success largely came about in the 1990s in response to his gigantic waterfall paintings. These paintings are often hung in corporate and public buildings, and Senju has been said to be one of a few artists today whose work is recognized by the general public. One of Senju’s waterfalls was the first painting by an Asian artist to be awarded an Honorable Mention at the Venice Biennale in 1995. These waterfall paintings often focus at the base of the waterfall where the falls crash into the pool below, usually cropping out the top of the falls. As a painter he primarily uses traditional Japanese painting techniques by employing pigments derived from natural materials and applying them to a specially designed mulberry paper base.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroshi_Senju
https://www.hiroshisenju.com/
About the Music:
“Isaiah 44:3, Thoughts and Remembrances” from the album Jackson Berkey Meets the Seattle Girls’ Choir
Jerome Wright conducts the Seattle Girls’ Choir with pianist/composer Jackson Berkley and other instrumentalists, celebrating the deep familial roots nourished from generation to generation that are remembered tenderly and with deep respect in this piece. Isaiah 44:3 expresses a beautiful promise from God to his people. An ancient text set to a chant-like melody by the composer hearkens back to the sound of Hebrew melody. Beginning from barely audible sounds, the choral dynamics progress fully as the work unfolds. The repetition of the chant develops both through extensions in the voice parts as well as in the accompaniment. While the melody remains constant throughout, harmonic extensions occur in the underlying parts. The choral setting seems to develop roots almost figuratively as the promise of God takes root and nourishes generation after generation of his people's seed upon the earth.
https://seattlegirlschoir.org/jackson-berkey-meets-the-seattle-girls-choir/
https://www.alfred.com/isaiah-443/p/36-J96108/
Lyrics: (Note: the music is very soft)
I will pour water upon him that is thirsty,
I will pour water upon the dry ground.
I will pour my spirit upon thy seed,
And my blessing upon thine offspring.
About the Composer:
Jackson Berkey (b. 1942) is an American composer, pianist, and singer, best known for his work with the musical group Mannheim Steamroller, which he cofounded in 1974. He graduated from Wilkes College in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, where he earned a bachelor's degree in piano performance. At the urging of a friend, he auditioned for the Juilliard School of Music, and was accepted into their graduate program. He received a master's degree in piano performance from Juilliard in 1968.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson_Berkey
https://www.berkey.com/
About the Performers:
Founded in 1982, Seattle Girls’ Choir provides a comprehensive and progressive choral education with an emphasis on vocal technique, musical literacy, and ensemble performance. The choir regularly collaborates with other Seattle-area arts organizations and performs at some of the most prestigious national and international choral festivals and competitions.
https://seattlegirlschoir.org/
About the Poetry and Poet:
Mary Oliver (1935–2019) is an American poet who has won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Oliver’s poetry is grounded in memories of Ohio and her adopted home of New England. Influenced by both Walt Whitman and Henry David Thoreau, she is known for her clear and poignant observances of the natural world. Her poems are filled with imagery from her daily walks near her home: shore birds, water snakes, the phases of the moon, and humpback whales. Oliver has been compared to Emily Dickinson, with whom she shares an affinity for solitude and inner monologues. “Mary Oliver’s poetry is an excellent antidote for the excesses of civilization,” wrote one reviewer for the Harvard Review, “for too much flurry and inattention, and the Baroque conventions of our social and professional lives. She is a poet of wisdom and generosity whose vision allows us to look intimately at a world not of our making.”
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/mary-oliver
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Oliver
About the Devotion Author:
Steven Homestead
Artist, Composer, Writer, and Curator
Steven Homestead is a Renaissance creative with a passion for arts and the church. For the past decade, he has served as a leader with the arts ministry at Saddleback Church in Southern California—a ministry which has recently expanded to help support a new arts ministry at Mariners Church. After the demise of Christians in the Visual Arts (CIVA) earlier this year, Steven has founded a new organization called The Network of Christians in the Visual Art to support artists (ncva.community). He is working on a book, while dreaming up a nation-wide road trip to catalyze arts and faith communities in North America. In all, Steven works to promote honor, champion voice, share wonder, and develop unity. Discover more at stevenhomestead.com and connect via Instagram: @scubahomie.