Advent Devotion for December 10th, the 14th day of Advent

Prayer: Come, Lord Jesus, into my life and into the life of Your world.

Scripture Reading: Luke 2:4-5

 So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child.

 

Devotional: Although these two, Joseph and Mary, had had the most extraordinary experience with Almighty God and received the commission to be the parents of the only begotten Son of God, still they had to comply with and conform their lives to the ordinary dictates of being citizens of this world. They had to comply with the orders of the earthly authorities. God did not call them “out of the world”, but in the very midst of their historical existence in time and space.

It is evident that God chose to be one of us in the very midst of our human condition of responsible obligations and duties.

So it is with all of us – God encounters us in the very midst of our humanity as one who shares this humanity and the Divine.

We, like Mary and Joseph, are not called to escape from our human situation, but to invest in it as did God's Son.

Of course, this does not mean that we conform ourselves to this world, but are in such a relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ that we are transformed into the very image (in this life) of the One who was truly human and truly God.

We are to be “in” the world but not “of” the world. The only way that can happen is when we follow the One who lived that way. This Advent Season might be a good time to do a personal assessment of who we are and who we long to be.

Prayer: Come, Lord Jesus.