Monday Devotional: December 5, 2022

The wolf will live with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the young goat; the calf and the young lion will feed together, and a little child will lead them. The cow and the bear will graze. Their young will lie down together, and a lion will eat straw like an ox. A nursing child will play over the snake’s hole; toddlers will reach right over the serpent’s den. They won’t harm or destroy anywhere on my holy mountain. The earth will surely be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, just as the water covers the sea. (Isaiah 11:6-9)

God bless the memory of my sweet, tenderhearted mom. While the rest of the family cackled at the misfortune of people who stumbled or fell on TV show America’s Funniest Home Videos, my mom would turn her head, especially if the person falling was a child. Even when my brother would say something like, “they wouldn’t show the video if anyone was hurt,” it was not enough. My mom just didn’t want to watch a kid stumble down a slide or fall off a bike.

As an educator by trade, she found it difficult to separate entertainment from concern for a child’s well-being. The show put my mother’s heart on full display. She modeled for me, long before I knew it for myself, the importance of a child’s safety. As an adult with a child of my own, I see it more clearly now. Once a person has a child to care for (as a parent, a grandparent, a caregiver, an aunt/uncle, or trusted friend), our greatest fears are no longer personal danger or harm, but instead danger or harm befalling a child we love.

If a child in your life has experienced harm or sickness, or if you have experienced the holy grief of losing a child, please know that God’s grace covers you. For those who haven’t, you are no doubt experienced in seeing children endure hardship in the age of social and broadcast media.

Isaiah’s prophecy promises security in the future, even for children, for the most vulnerable and precious among us. We can also read this prophecy as a current reality. We read earlier in Isaiah 11 that this peace and security comes from a stump. It does not come from a mighty tree but from a place where the tree has been felled. Isn’t that how hope emerges for us? No matter what hardship or grief we have endured, hope is born in a thing that seems lifeless. But when this hope for safety is realized fully in the future, our very ideas of safety will change because there will be no opposite. There will be no harm to God’s holy mountain.

Prayer

Pray for the safety and security of children.

By Anna Guillozet, Advent: A Calendar of Devotions 2022, pages 14-15

Join us for Our Advent Bible Study

“Prepare the Way of the Lord” by Adam Hamilton, senior pastor of The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas.

Session 2: Pregnancy, Birth, Circumcision, and Zachariah’s Prophecy

In-Person Session:
Wednesday, December 7, 2022
1:00 pm to 2:00 pm
Fellowship Hall.

Zoom Session:
Monday, December 5, 2022
6:00 pm to 7:00 pm

Session Goals:

1. Ponder how asking questions and taking time for silence can nurture faith.
2. Examine Elizabeth and Mary’s relationship as a model for networks of caring That brings younger and older people together.
3. Reflect on Zechariah’s praise of God’s grace in Luke 1:68-79 for its insights into God’s character, and God’s activity through John the Baptist and Jesus.
4. Identify specific ways we can reflect God’s light to those “sitting in darkness” this Advent.