December 13: An Invitation to Prepare for the Lord's Coming
♫ Music:
Day 11 - Wednesday, December 13
Title: AN INVITATION TO PREPARE FOR THE LORD’S COMING
Scripture #1: ISAIAH 40:1–4 (NKJV)
“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.”
Scripture #2: Isaiah 43:19–21 (NKJV)
Behold, I will do a new thing, Now it shall spring forth; Shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness And rivers in the desert. The beast of the field will honor Me, The jackals and the ostriches, Because I give waters in the wilderness, And rivers in the desert, To give drink to My people, My chosen. These people I have formed for Myself; They shall declare My praise.
Poetry & Poet:
“Open the Way”
by Timothy Murphy
Open the Way for God? Take to the road,
Calvary Hill. It is no easy path.
Give up your greed, your tendency to wrath,
go to confession, and lay down your load.
Turn your attention from your sad sack self
to those around you, suffering and in need.
Let no day pass without a kindred deed,
Take down the King James Bible from your shelf,
Drink deeply, grow like Jeremiah’s tree,
beside a stream; it flourishes in drought,
and casts its shade on all beset by doubt
who follow the hard trail from misery,
Hatred of self and others, mortal fright
and suicidal darkness into light.
AN INVITATION TO PREPARE FOR THE LORD’S COMING
As someone who loves the mountains—whose heart lifts at the very sight of them—it can be disconcerting to read in today’s Scripture about every mountain and hill being made low.
But think of it this way.
You were in a car accident. You broke both your legs, and now you must use a wheelchair to get anywhere. You want to go to the library, but there is construction, and all the ramps leading into the building are inaccessible. You’d have to go over multiple high curbs to get in, and then a set of stairs.
You might as well try to walk to the moon.
This, I think, gives us the picture Isaiah is getting at: we want to get to God, but our legs won’t carry us there. The mountain of the Lord is too high for us to climb. Our feet can’t walk its heights and our lungs can’t breathe its air.
And our sins weigh us down so much that we can’t even raise up our heads to look towards God.
And it is in this impossible place that the Lord says, “Comfort, yes, comfort My people.”
Why?
Because, He says, “I will do a new thing…I will even make a road in the wilderness.”
The road, of course, is Jesus.
We can put down our arms; someone else has entered the fight for us, and has won.
We can walk out, blinking, into the light, our weapons hanging from our hands, and find that we have no more need for them.
We’ve fought against those who were harming us for so long…and we were also the ones who were doing the harm. As the hymn says, the war is over because:
All their sins our God will pardon,
Blotting out each dark misdeed,
All that well deserve his anger
He no more will see or heed.
And we, the sinners and the sinned against, hear a new, miraculous verdict:
They have suffered many a day,
Now their griefs have passed away.
God will change their aching sadness
Into ever-springing gladness.
And the hills are not the only ones who bow. As our hymn today makes clear, we are to imitate the hills, prostrating ourselves in repentance. This is the only reasonable response possible to God’s mercy: to accept it, kneeling in gratitude and showing sorrow for our sins. “Oh that warning cry obey!”
And our poet gives us an idea of what a life returned to the Lord might look like:
Take down the King James Bible from your shelf,
drink deeply, grew like Jeremiah’s tree,
beside a stream; it flourishes in drought
and casts its shade on all …
who follow the hard trail … into light
We bow down like that leveled valley…and rise again like trees. No more fighting and weeping in the dark, but slowly and surely, maturing to our full stature—in the light, and drinking deeply of that river, of both Spirit and of Word.
I give waters in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert,
to give drink to My people, My chosen.
The Lord is the one who gives us what we need to flourish—so that we can be, as the psalmist says, like trees planted by rivers of water, bearing our fruit in due season.
And what do those trees do, lifting their leafy branches towards the sun in joy?
They praise the Lord.
And this is what we are for, in the end: praise. As God Himself says:
These people I have formed for Myself;
They shall declare My praise.
Amen, and hallelujah!
Prayer
Oh God, forasmuch as without thee we are not able to please thee, mercifully grant that thy Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with thee and the same Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, now and forever.
Amen.
—The Book of Common Prayer
Jessica Snell
Biola Class of 2003
Writer and Editor
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:
Onement, 1
Barnett Newman
1948
Oil on canvas and oil on masking tape on canvas
69.2 x 41.2 cm
Gift of Annalee Newman
Museum of Modern Art
New York, New York
Artist Barnett Newman proclaimed Onement, I to be his artistic breakthrough, giving the work an importance belied by its modest size. This is the first time the artist used a vertical band to define the spatial structure of his work. This band, later dubbed a "zip," became Newman's signature mark. The artist applied the light cadmium red zip atop a strip of masking tape with a palette knife. This thick, irregular band on the smooth field of Indian red simultaneously divides and unites the composition.
About the Artist:
Barnett Newman (1905–1970) was an American artist. He has been critically regarded as one of the major figures of abstract expressionism, and one of the foremost color field painters. His paintings explore the sense of place that viewers experience with art and incorporate simplistic forms to emphasize this feeling. Newman was one of the most intellectual artists of the New York School. He was born and raised in New York, the son of Polish Jewish immigrants. His approach to art making was shaped by his studies in philosophy at the City College of New York and his political activism. For him, art was an act of self-creation and a declaration of political, intellectual, and individual freedom. He was around thirty when he started painting, having spent the previous decade teaching, writing, studying, and working in his father’s menswear store. He deemed much of his early work unworthy of consideration and destroyed it. It was not until 1944 that he considered his work mature. In 1948, with the completion of a painting titled Onement, I, Newman found his voice. It was in this work that he hit upon what would become the signature motif that defined all of his paintings to come: a vertical band connecting the upper and lower margins of the painting that he called a “zip.” His zips streak through fields of color in spare compositions that prompted critics to dub him a color field painter and minimalists to look to his work for inspiration. It was not until the 1960s, the last decade of his life, that he achieved public acclaim for his work. His anarchic independence and uncompromising stance may have contributed to his slow acceptance, but these deep-seated forces within him also shaped his art.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnett_Newman
About the Music:
“Comfort, Comfort All My People” from the album Anno Domini
Lyrics:
Speak to all Jerusalem
Of the peace that waits for them,
Tell them that their sins I cover,
That their warfare now is over.
Comfort, comfort all my people,
Speak of peace, so says our God.
Comfort those who sit in darkness,
Groaning from their sorrows' load.
Speak to all Jerusalem
Of the peace that waits for them,
Tell them that their sins I cover,
That their warfare now is over.
All their sins our God will pardon,
Blotting out each dark misdeed,
All that well deserve his anger
He no more will see or heed.
They have suffered many a day,
Now their griefs have passed away.
God will change their aching sadness
Into ever-springing gladness.
John the Baptist's voice is crying
In the desert far and near,
Calling people to repentance
For the kingdom now is here.
Oh, that warning cry obey!
Now prepare for God a way,
Let the valleys rise to meet him
And the hills bow down to greet him.
Straighten out the crooked highway,
Make the rougher places plain.
Let your hearts be true and humble,
Ready for his holy reign.
For the glory of the Lord,
Now o'er earth is spread abroad,
And all flesh shall see the token
That his word is never broken.
About the Composers/Performers:
Originally formed in 2003 as a worship band, Koiné quickly began to gain a grassroots following as requests for appearances and sales of their first album, Koiné, started to roll in. Koiné has been touring North America sharing their unique take on familiar Christian hymns. Church favorites traditionally accompanied by pipe organ are given new life through this indie-rock-inspired sextet. With their arrangements, Koiné strives to find a unique balance between the familiarity of the classic hymn melodies and the instrumentation of the new arrangements. To date, Koiné has recorded seven studio LPs (Koiné, Gesangbuch, Church Bells, Anno Domini, The Vine, Emmanuel Lux, and Visit) and a live concert DVD (Footsteps to the Cross).
https://koinemusic.com/
About the Poetry and Poet:
Timothy Murphy (1951–2018) was an American poet. Murphy graduated from Yale University, where he participated in the Scholar of the House program. His books include the poetry collections The Deed of Gift (1998), Very Far North (2002), Mortal Stakes • Faint Thunder (2011), and Hunter's Log (2011), as well as a memoir, Set the Ploughshare Deep: A Prairie Memoir (2000). Though hunting and farming are essential subjects for his writing, myths and legends influence his work as well.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/timothy-murphy
About the Devotion Author:
Jessica Snell
Biola Class of 2003
Writer and Editor
Jessica Snell is a writer whose work has appeared in Compelling Science Fiction, Tor.com, Christ and Pop Culture, Focus on the Family, and more. She is also a freelance editor who loves helping other writers polish their books till they shine! In her free time, she reads, knits, and spends time with her husband and their four children. You can follow her on Twitter at @theJessicaSnell, where she tweets about books, faith, and family. Her website is jessicasnell.com.