31, 35
Isaiah 7:10-25 2 Thessalonians 2:13-3:5 Luke 22:14-30
In Isaiah, God measures a span of time with a young woman’s pregnancy and the birth and growth of her child, a son named Immanuel, “God With Us.” Christians look back and find in those words a foretelling of God’s becoming incarnate in Jesus to live and die as one of us. We understand that deep longing to know that God is with us, especially when circumstances heighten our fears that God is remote or even absent.
Luke’s telling of the Last Supper seems out of turn in a season that anticipates his birth, even if the season also anticipates Christ’s coming again in glory. But we haven’t strayed mistakenly into Lent. Our hunger for God spools out from the manger to the night before Jesus dies, when he offers the bread and wine as his body and blood and bids us to eat and drink in remembrance. Both at the manger and at the Lord’s table, we come to receive God in the flesh and to be fed. We come to be reminded that God is with us, incarnate not only in the Christ child and in his “creatures of bread and wine,” but in each of us. And each time that we manifest in our lives the presence of God within us or recognize God’s presence in the world around us, especially when we or others most fear that God is remote or even absent, Christ comes again in glory.
Holy Creator,
Help us always to come to both the manger and your table full of expectation and ready to receive you. Amen.
2 Responses
Thank you for your thoughtful and timely meditation. My wife, Gail and I live near the end of a poorly paved road north of Dripping Springs. We now attend All Saints, Austin virtually for which we are deeply grateful.
Lovely, thought and spirit provoking, as always, Lisa. Thank you for your inspiration. Agree.