I light that second candle, and he clears his throat to read, about the theme assigned to that candle: Preparation. He begins with a preface, simply this: “He prepared, for us!”

He speaks of the Second Advent.

And he reads:

1 Corinthians 2:9, referring to Isaiah 64:4,

and Matthew 25:34.

This comes right on the heels of our listening intently, torsos slanted forward, one hand cupped close around one ear, two bodies stretching, reaching to catch muted words surrounded by an old tape’s squeaking and echoes and blur.

I had unearthed some old A. W. Tozer sermon recordings. This one was about Christ’s second coming. And His own preparation: “I go to prepare a place for you…”

Tozer spoke of wedding preparations: of a bride so distracted by working out details, getting everything just so, that she finds herself standing in the church with everything so well planned and worked out and prepared for — except one thing. She’d left out… the bridegroom!

He was talking of speculative eschatology. But what he said applies at least as well to our Christmases.

Are we/am I focusing on Him in His coming, or something else? Maybe even just caught up doing details for their own sake?

He prepared for us. Not just for an event. Not only as in the scriptures above, read over our candles, but in a multitude of ways. Not only from the eras of those prophecies, but from the beginning of time.

I know. I took the time to look. And I know I only came up with a tiny part:

“I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, [there] you may be also” (Jhn 14:2-3).

“Again, he sent out other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who are invited, “See, I have prepared my dinner; …all things [are] ready. Come to the wedding”‘”(Mt 22:4).

“Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world’” (Mt 25:34)

“My eyes have seen your salvation, which You have prepared before the face of all peoples” (Lk 2:31).

“…that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory” (Rom 9:23)

“But as it is written: ‘Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.'” (1 Cr 2:9).

“Now He who has prepared us for this very thing [is] God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee” (2 Cr 5:5).

“God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them” (Hbr 11:16).

He has prepared for us.

We/I need to be prepared for Him — first of all in focus:

Not lost in frills and details and ever-increasing add-ons.  Looking intently for the coming King, the Incarnated, Resurrected and Glorified, coming for His (waiting? ready?) bride — whose gaze, heart, and mind are directed, leaning and straining forward, toward… Him!

~~~

Future posts: Mistakes in His planning? Like…

No place prepared for the Christ child?

Difficulties in two genealogies that “contradict”?

(Stay tuned.)

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My one December aim of “one small touch each day …” physically, has fallen flat, fallen so far short!

No tree, green-fragrant, points triangle up toward heaven before the central window.

None of the windows bear their usual candles of “welcome.”

No gifts are wrapped or sent yet.

And the half-done wreath (on whose formation I fizzled last Friday) hangs half-naked pathetic on the door.

A flu sidelined me, slowed me down, and when I speeded up too soon last week, resulting relapse sent me “back to start” — or rather, stop!

And I’m sitting here thankful for it.

Yes.

Not just forcing thank-You words, but really seeing reason to be grateful.

December’s preparations used to mean such different things from now. And those past priorities, “urgent” “must-do’s,” are the ones that are not happening.

But my second December aim is happening, more than I might have imagined!

My heart is pointing heaven-upward,

my soul feeling more evergreen than ever,

my thoughts more elated, inflated with joy.

My spirit is fully swathed in the garment of praise,

and my eyes, though maybe bloodshot, are lighting welcome to the King of kings — better to God, methinks, than window candles any day.

It’s been an incredible year, an incredible week, of miracles, of answered prayer past measure. And even though in recent years we’ve pared down on the busy, I would have started adding this fluff and that non-essential and yet some other demanding trapping… which my sick-abed precluded!

So I count it blessing that in greater stillness I can see the truth: that even all that stuff I “had” to do, I don’t have to do at all! I am merely freer to focus on recent blessings, and on the One Who came and is coming again.

It is the preparation of the heart that counts.

So, thank you, Lord,

• for flu,
• and flu relapse,
• that they’re early and fairly mild,
• for quiet in the morning,
• and thoughts uncluttered and free.

Thank you for

• Your gift of Love that keeps on giving,
• Your Son, and Your Holy Spirit, given so mercifully, so incredibly to me, 
• the sure promise of Your final Advent, 
• my beginning to “get” what’s really important preparation, and for
• a preparation of my heart.

*****

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What is the color of Hope?

Is it, perhaps,  pink? I wonder, on a morning when skies all around me shine pink: north, south, east, west…

—when the air itself looks pink, in clouds skimming earth?

I think of this later, when a phrase rises from my Bible page—a series of phrases, really:

            “you… wait for His Son from heaven,

            whom He raised from the dead,

            even Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come” (1 Th 1:10).

They waited. In expectant hope. Souls glowing pink with hope.

And down through years, centuries, others have waited, in expectant hope.

And we wait…

Although we are a people not friendly toward waiting, who want it all now — or yesterday, whose patience tends toward short, and whose expectation rests too much on the concrete predictable.

Why didn’t He tell us When? When He would return. He said only the Father knew, but why didn’t the Father reveal it?

The first Advent candle people have called the candle of Hope. The second, the candle of Preparation. And what needs preparation more than our hearts? And how will that happen but for the quieting, the expectation settling hope in our hearts, the possibility warming our minds, that it could be in our lifetime?

Quieting today, in hope and expectation, thinking on His first Advent, looking toward His second, considering all those waiting together from first till second, down through decades and millennia. Waiting in pink expectant hope…

knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as [they were] from the beginning of creation.”

For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth…

But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day [is] as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

The Lord is not slack concerning [His] promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.

But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up. 

Therefore, …what manner [of persons] ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness,

looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God…?

…we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. 

Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless; 

and consider [that] the longsuffering of our Lord [is] salvation

-2 Peter 3:3-15

~

For what [is] our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? [Is it] not even you in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming?

-1 Thessalonians 2:19

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Geertgen tot Sint Jans, “Birth of Jesus”

What do you do with God’s Manger? Treat it like our sheep did — or our goats? Or like God’s people of long ago, who grieved His heart?

An Isaiah verse has been sticking to my mind lately like a burr to wool, about the Master’s manger (Is 1:3). I think how ours (my favorite decoration we no longer use) became trash, firewood…

Cross and manger beside the driveway, spot-lit by night, warmed my heart as I looked out and pondered the great gift offered by these long-preordained means.

Then Husband moved them.

The lower sheep meadow would be idyllically appropriate, he thought, our woolies part of the scene.

Yes, true, but I couldn’t see it from the house anymore, and people driving past had to look fast or slow down or they’d miss it entirely.

The sheep, and goats (especially), gave him manger trouble, too. The sheep kept eating up its hay, and the goats…! Some jumped right into it, tromping and dirtying — and helping its destruction.

Really though, who could fault the sheep? A manger is, after all, a feeding station. With pasture gone winter dormant, they accepted its offered nourishment. This even pictured what the Good Shepherd’s sheep should do — what we leave off doing, like His “sheep” of Isaiah’s time.

“I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me,” God said, through Isaiah. “The ox knows his owner, and the donkey his master’s manger, but… my people do not consider.”

In those words lie multi-level meanings, hints at future as well as present sin: like rejecting the manger’s occupant in Herod’s time, like, in Isaiah’s, forsaking God’s nourishment that had brought them the astounding success He’d bestowed.

But the clear sin was rebellion.

I doubt they would have labeled themselves rebels against God. Just a little neglect here, a little drift there, a tad of compromise with the world and a pinch of different kinds of idolatry… Insidious sin is barely noticeable.

They still did the feast days, big time, still brought sacrifices and went through obligatory motions. But their feast days and sacrifices sickened Him, because their hearts — and obedience — toward Him had gone dead.

Justice, and mercy to the poor and helpless, were the heart of His Law, not piles of sacrifices and tons of foods to devour. Obedience to His word’s rich rightness meant more than any other offering (1 Sa 15:22).

As His people forsook His true food and obedience to it, God said they would be devoured (Is 1:20)!

What would He say to us, His people today?

Are we feeding at the manger of His word, or trampling and fouling it?

Do we recognize the help we have in Him, or do we turn everywhere else, as those folks turned to their idols and pagan neighbors?

Does His love overflow our hearts in mercy and justice toward people and honor toward Him?

I don’t know about you, but I recognize in my heart many hidden seeds of rebellion that can spring up all toxic, shockingly fast.

What to do?

Forgetting the to-do list for a moment, let’s be sure to “Return to the shepherd and Overseer of [our] souls” (1 Pt 2:25),

to feed our hearts at the manger of His word,

to live it out,

and…

REJOICE!

Because despite His people’s rebellion, the LORD is merciful. Along with rebuke Isaiah wrote promise, forgiveness, and hope—fulfilled in part at Christ’s first Advent, to be complete at His return.

~

COUNTING MORE REASONS TO PRAISE HIM 

(From John 1)

• 557 – Because He, the Word, became flesh and dwelt among us.
• 558 – Because eye-witnesses saw His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, and testified about it.
• 559 – Because He was the true Light coming into the world.
• 560 – Because He, Maker of this world that didn’t know Him, did this, took on a form so small and lowly, to visit and redeem them.
• 561 – Because He came to His own people, even though He knew they would not receive Him.
• 562 – Because to as many as do receive Him and believe on His name He gives the right to become the children of God,
• 563 – Because He gives new birth, not of blood, or the will of the flesh or of man, but of God.
• 564 – Because in Him was Life
• 565 – Because that Life was the Light of the world
• 566 – Because that Light shines in the darkness
• 567 – Because the darkness cannot comprehend or overcome it.
• 568 – Because He was full of grace
• 569 – Because He was full of truth
• 570 – Because of His fullness can we all receive, and “grace for grace”
• 571 – Because though the Law was given by Moses, grace and truth came by Jesus Christ
• 572 – Because, although no one has seen God at any time, the only begotten Son has revealed/declared Him.
• 573 – Because Isaiah 40:3 was fulfilled in John the Baptist, who went before Christ, as the prophesied “voice in the wilderness,” crying, “Make straight the way of the LORD!”
• 574 – Because Christ was, and is, the Lamb that takes away the sin of the world.

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Stories of Rain and Rivers

The other half of my favorite decoration we no longer use…

It’s. Not. This.

But it’s very closely related…

Manger. Crib. Creche.

I hear the first word and think back to French 101, and the French word “manger.” Spelled the same as our English word, though pronounced differently, it means “to eat.”

And sure enough, my Arcade Dictionary of Word Origins (which contains fascinating stuff), says, “Etymologically manger means ‘eater’ or ‘feeding place,” adding that it comes from an old French word with that meaning, adopted from the old common-Latin word for “chew.”

“Crib,” in Old English also meant “manger,” feeding place, the same book also says. (That’s why this word appears in Isaiah 1:3 KJV.) “Crib” only started to be used for “a child’s bed” sometime in the 17th century.

The corn crib in the photo above isn’t exactly a feeder, but is nevertheless a holder for food.

Creche is simply the French word for crib, feeder, food holder.

Think about it: Jesus as a babe was laid in a rough wood feeding trough, in Bethlehem, which means “House of Bread.”

He grew up and went out and fed multitudes with bread broken and torn, then told them He was the Bread of Life.

Shortly thereafter, He broke bread alone in an upper room with His disciples and told them, “This is my body, given for you… Take, and eat.”

And right after that he allowed His body to be laid out again on rough wood, not of a manger but an execution device, yet still the provision place for our Bread of Life.

Back in Bethlehem, three decades before, stretched out long upon that crib, that manger, fell the foreshadow of the cross. And so I did love the rough spot-lit manger standing at Christmastime before and beneath a rough-wood cross, where at a certain place at a certain time of day you could see the shadow of cross on manger. And ponder.

Ponder these wonders with me now, and share my awe.

[There’s yet more “astounding meaning wrapped up in this humble thing,” a manger. Lately Isaiah 1:2-3 has been ringing echoes through my mind and heart. And I can’t help tying it all together: those two verses, the manger, the cross, and Christ, as both the Word of Life and the giver of “word(s) of eternal life” (John 6:68). More on this next time, God willing…]

*****

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