All posts in Advent

  • The Anticipated Christ

    Three years ago I wrote a Lenten devotional, The Unvarnished Jesus. Now I’m happy to announce that I’ve written an Advent and Christmas devotional, The Anticipated Christ. These forty-two devotions take the reader on a journey from the first Sunday of Advent through the twelve days of Christmas and to Epiphany on January 6.

    I would like to share with you the introduction and the first devotion to give you a sense of what the book is like. I pray The Anticipated Christ will enrich your experience of Advent and Christmas.

    Blessings,

    BZ

    * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

    Introduction

    Ours is a secular age. The sacred is pushed to the periphery. To keep the sacred at the center of our lives is a heroic act of defiance. To be a religious person in an irreligious world may be the last act of rebellion. I advocate such rebellion. I reject the trite aphorism, “I’m spiritual, but not religious.” Of course, I’m spiritual, we all are, but I’m also religious — or at least I seek to be. Amorphous spirituality too easily becomes little more than a mood with a sprinkling of “wellness” techniques. I need something more rigorous, something more deeply rooted, something that draws upon the deep wells of ancient wisdom and practice. This is what we find in the Great Tradition of the Christian faith.
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  • O Little Town of Bethlehem

    O Little Town of Bethlehem
    Brian Zahnd

    But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah,
    who are one of the little clans of Judah,
    from you shall come forth for me
    one who is to rule in Israel,
    whose origin is from of old,
    from ancient days.
    Therefore he shall give them up until the time
    when she who is in labor has brought forth;
    then the rest of his kindred shall return
    to the people of Israel.
    And he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord,
    in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.
    And they shall live secure, for now he shall be great
    to the ends of the earth;
    and he shall be the one of peace.
    —Micah 5:2-5a

    The prophet Micah was a contemporary of Isaiah of Jerusalem, prophesying seven hundred years before Christ. Micah is best known to us as the one who foretold the birth of Messiah in Bethlehem. Of course, Bethlehem was the birthplace of King David, so it makes sense that the messianic Son of David would also be born there. Nevertheless, Bethlehem was only a small and seemingly insignificant village, but this is in keeping with the ways of God — the work of God often emerges from quiet obscurity.
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  • The World As It Is (An Advent Poem)


    The World As It Is
    (An Advent Poem)

    I take the world as it is and still believe
    Debauched and beautiful, sordid and seemly
    Where Kerouac is a secular saint
    Heard uncensored telling his story
    On the road with Dean Moriarty
    In the long run Merton took a better turn
    But still the beat goes on…
    Take your stand on whatever smidgen of faith you have
    Smack-dab in a world of hustlers and hookers, users and losers, liars and lovers
    Don’t waste your life on a pastel watercolor faith
    That runs if touched by a tear or a drop of sweat
    Can you take the world as it is
    And still believe in God?
    Can you take people as they are
    And still believe in love?
    Or do you only play at make believe?
    A world of terracotta saints
    Of little houses on soundstage prairies
    So not at home in the world as it is
    That you can’t wait for it to be left behind
    That, my friend, is no real faith
    It’s scripted B-movie phoniness
    Rated G (for gullible audiences)
    A real faith lives in a real world
    The world as it is
    Sordid and seemly
    Debauched and beautiful
    It’s the little town of Bethlehem
    Good enough for the Son of God
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  • Waiting For God To Act

    Jeremiah lamenting the destruction of Jerusalem

    Waiting for God to Act
    Brian Zahnd

    Advent is for waiting. As we tell the story of redemption through the church calendar we begin our telling of the sacred story, not with doing, not with celebrating, but with waiting — waiting for God to act.

    Yet most of us — children of a high-tech, high-speed, instantaneous age — are not very good at waiting. It feels too much like doing nothing, and we are the driven ones who take pride in being busy. Waiting is not really our thing.

    Or worse yet, waiting feels too much like lamenting, which is closer to the truth. With the loss of a strong sense of the Christian calendar we have conflated Advent and Christmas into a single “holiday season.” But the truth is that Advent is quite different from Christmas as it carries its strong theme of prophetic lament. The world has gone wrong, justice lies fallen in the streets, and it seems that God is nowhere to be found. That’s when the lamentation of waiting arises in our soul: “O Lord, how long?” From Isaiah to Malachi there is a consistent theme of waiting in lament for God to act. All of the Hebrew prophets, each in their own way, composed their prophetic poems around this recurring theme: The Lord is coming, God is about to act, but for now…we wait.

    And yet the waiting is essential. For it’s in the waiting that our soul grows quiet and contemplative and cultivates a capacity for awareness by which we can discern what God is doing when he does act.
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  • Waiting for God to Act

    Jeremiah lamenting the destruction of Jerusalem

    Waiting for God to Act
    Brian Zahnd

    Advent is for waiting. As we tell the story of redemption through the church calendar we begin our telling of the sacred story, not with doing, not with celebrating, but with waiting — waiting for God to act.

    Yet most of us — children of a high-tech, high-speed, instantaneous age — are not very good at waiting. It feels too much like doing nothing, and we are the driven ones who take pride in being busy. Waiting is not really our thing.

    Or worse yet, waiting feels too much like lamenting, which is closer to the truth. With the loss of a strong sense of the Christian calendar we have conflated Advent and Christmas into a single “holiday season.” But the truth is that Advent is quite different from Christmas as it carries its strong theme of prophetic lament. The world has gone wrong, justice lies fallen in the streets, and it seems that God is nowhere to be found. That’s when the lamentation of waiting arises in our soul: “O Lord, how long?” From Isaiah to Malachi there is a consistent theme of waiting in lament for God to act. All of the Hebrew prophets, each in their own way, composed their prophetic poems around this recurring theme: The Lord is coming, God is about to act, but for now…we wait.

    And yet the waiting is essential. For it’s in the waiting that our soul grows quiet and contemplative and cultivates a capacity for awareness by which we can discern what God is doing when he does act.
    Read more

  • Bethlehem: Beauty and Brutality

    BethWall

    Bethlehem: Beauty and Brutality
    Brian Zahnd

    The Sunday before Advent I was preaching in Bethlehem. While there a Palestinian friend I’ve known for nearly twenty years and who shares my appreciation for Orthodox icons gave me the wonderful gifts of a Nativity icon and a Root of Jesse icon. These “gospels in color” now occupy a prominent place in my study. They have been especially meaningful to me during this season of Advent.

    Icons

    I also received two more “souvenirs” from Bethlehem — a spent teargas canister and a used rubber bullet retrieved from the street in front of the Bethlehem Bible College where some of my Palestinian Christian friends teach. Unfortunately, these sad souvenirs are quite plentiful.

    Teargas
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  • Matthew and the Big Story of Jesus

    matthew

    Matthew and the Big Story of Jesus
    Brian Zahnd

    The Bible tells a big, sprawling story of sin and redemption, of death and resurrection. It takes us from Creation to New Creation — from the Garden of Eden to the New Jerusalem. Along the way, the plot sometimes feels lost and the story seems…stalled. But when we turn the page from Malachi to Matthew, the twisting plot of the Story God is telling is about to come into sharp focus. We’re about to meet the central character of the Story — his name is Jesus!

    A few years ago I read the Bible straight through like you would any other book. I was trying to read it as if I’d never heard the Story. There were moments of elation, but also times when I felt the pain of the Hebrew prophets as they nearly despaired. Would the promises God had made to Abraham and his seed ever come true? Would the longed-for reign of Messiah ever arrive? The wintery day I ended my reading of Malachi and turned the page to begin Matthew was during the season of Advent. I was sitting by a woodstove with a warm fire. Music played quietly in the background. As I read the words of Matthew 1:18, “This is how Jesus the Messiah was born,” the radio began to play the familiar carol What Child Is This? Tears filled my eyes. The Story was back on track, and God was keeping his promise!
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  • Secular or Sacred Time?

    Nativity_and_adoration_of_the_Magi

    Secular or Sacred Time?
    Brian Zahnd

    What is time? Time is the measurement of motion through space.

    A day is the revolution of the earth.
    A month is the revolution of the moon around the earth.
    A year is the revolution of the earth around the sun.

    But time as such is without any apparent meaning. Just a spinning planet with an orbiting moon orbiting a star…repeating the process for the past four and a half billion years.

    To give time meaning we need a story. Without a story time is pointless and nihilism beckons. (I am of the opinion that the violence that goes under the guise of Islamic terrorism is more likely a form of nihilist rage disguised in religious robes…but that is another subject.)

    For almost two thousand years the church has had the wisdom and creativity to mark time by the gospel story of Jesus. This is time made sacred. Thus the church calendar.
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