Come to the Manger Student Book: Scriptures for the Church Seasons: Advent 2008 - Softcover

Kaylor, Robert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0687647118 ISBN 13: 9780687647118

Verlag: Abingdon Pr, 2008

Inhaltsangabe

Lectionary-based; five sessions; one session for each Sunday of Advent, plus readings for Christmas Day.

Advent 2008
Come to the Manger

An Advent Study Based on the Revised Common Lectionary

Robert Kaylor

As Bob Kaylor writes in his introduction to this Advent study, “There’s no greater birth story in the world than the one we celebrate on Christmas. It carries with it all the elements of a great story: anticipation, conflict, hope, heroes and villains, and a surprise ending.” He invites readers to feel the joy and the pain with every verse from the prophets to the Gospels. He reminds us that Advent is a great time for us to gather and listen to those stories again, with “fresh ears and with eyes wide open for new possibilities.” Through the study of the Revised Common Lectionary texts, Kaylor invites us to see God’s face, to find our way to the manger, to identify a vision for vocation, to build God’s house, and to behold Jesus.

A five-session leader’s guide is available for use in Sunday school classes or other small groups.

Bob Kaylor is pastor of Park City Community United Methodist Church in Park City, Utah, and is a clergy member of the Rocky Mountain Annual Conference. A 1995 graduate of Asbury Theological Seminary, Bob is also the Senior Writer for the preaching journal Homiletics. Bob is married to Jennifer and they have two children, Hannah and Rob. Bob enjoys reading history, watching baseball, mountain biking, and playing the drums.

Abingdon Press

General Interest/Seasonal/Advent

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Come to the Manger Student

By Robert Kaylor

Abingdon Press

Copyright © 2008 The United Methodist Publishing House
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-687-64711-8

Chapter One

Seeing God's Face

Scriptures for Advent: The First Sunday Isaiah 64:1-9 1 Corinthians 1:3-9 Mark 13:24-37

We have had quite a baby boom atour church recently, with several families having newborns within the span of a couple of months. Besides filling up the nursery on Sunday mornings, one of the other benefits for the church and for me as a pastor is that I have the great privilege of bringing these little ones into the church community through the sacrament of baptism. That is always a special occasion—moms and dads beaming, grandparents snapping pictures, the congregation joyously responding with their commitment to support the child and her family as she grows to know God's grace for herself.

What is most fascinating to me, though, is that moment when I take the child from her mother's arms and hold her. No matter how agreeable the child is, there is a momentary panic in her eyes when she cannot see mom's face. Sometimes there is a whimper, sometimes a full-out wail; but most often the child quickly moves her focus to the face of the one who is now holding her. They seem to reach out instinctively to touch that new face in front of them. In my case, that face has a goatee ripe for grabbing and a microphone just begging to be pulled off.

Recent studies have shown that babies may be better at face recognition than adults. In fact, humans start out with the ability to recognize and remember a wide range of faces even among races or species different from our own. Somehow, though, as we grow, we begin to lose our ability to recognize faces. My theory is that it is because we can become too self-focused and busy to pay attention to those around us.

The Scriptures for this first Sunday in Advent are all about recapturing the ability to recognize faces, particularly the face of God revealed in Jesus Christ. When we come to the manger, we are doing nothing less than seeking the face of God—a face that the Scriptures say will one day be revealed in glory to the whole world.

REVEALING THE HIDDEN GOD ISAIAH 64:1-9

* * *

One of my all-time favorite movies is Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The story of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table gets a silly retelling in this goofy and sometimes irreverent spoof. I laugh out loud every time I watch it. In the midst of the movie's silliness, though, there is a scene that is unintentionally poignant.

As Arthur gathers his knights, he suddenly hears an angelic heavenly sound and looks up to see cartoon clouds parting to reveal a robed and bearded God wearing a crown and speaking in a thundering voice. If you were to ask a child (or even many adults) to draw a picture of what God might look like, the results would probably look a lot like the movie's version of God. After God tells Arthur to "stop groveling," God tells the king quite plainly that he is to set out on a quest to seek out the grail, the lost cup of Jesus from the Last Supper. Arthur replies that that sounds like a good idea, to which God thunders, "'Course it's a good idea!"

What strikes me about this scene is that the Python's parody of God is what a lot of people hope might be the reality. Wouldn't it be great, for example, if God would part the clouds and speak to us plainly, telling us what to do and what path we are to take with our lives? Some people I meet present this as a theological conundrum: If God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and omnipresent, why doesn't God just reveal himself to us and eliminate any doubt? Why all the secrecy?

The same question is asked by the writer of Isaiah, who entreats God to "tear open the heavens and come down" in an awesome display of power and might evident to all the nations (Isaiah 64:1-2). The writer saw God as living in the "holy and glorious habitation" of heaven but lamented that God seemed so distant, withholding God's "heart" and "compassion" from the writer and his people (63:15).

God had previously been present with his people in power, delivering them out of Egypt, leading them by a pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire, revealing God's glory in giving the Law to Moses on Mount Sinai, dwelling with Israel in the wilderness Tabernacle, inhabiting the Temple built by Solomon, going before Israel in battle, and doing more "awesome deeds" (64:3) that God's people had not expected. No one in history had ever heard of or seen a God so powerfully present and active on behalf of his people (verses 3-4). Now, though, as the people suffered from the sting of defeat and exile at the hand of the Babylonians, it seemed that God had closed up the clouds and turned off the fireworks on their behalf.

People want signs from God but tend to ignore them when they are present. Even while God was making the "mountains quake" at Sinai in Exodus 32, talking with Moses on the mountaintop, and giving him the Law, the people of Israel were at the bottom of the mountain complaining against God and Moses and crafting their own god in the form of a golden calf. No matter how spectacular the sign or evidence, humans are easily blinded to God's presence and power because of sin—the serious human drive for self-interest and self-indulgence. Sin has a way of blocking our view of God by putting up a mirror that causes us to fall in love with our own reflection.

Israel had continued that long history of neglecting God and going after other pagan gods; and for that, as the prophets had continually pointed out, there would be consequences. Exile was one of those consequences, but the greater problem was God's apparent retreat into hiding. The writer seems to have been conflicted about all this, even implying that God's hiding may have been the cause of Israel's sin in the first place (Isaiah 64:5). Did God hide from God's people because they had sinned, or had the people sinned because God had hidden from them?

The writer and his people felt the pain of God's absence. They had become unclean, and any "righteous deeds" they had done could not purify them. The filthy cloth here refers to a garment stained with menstrual blood, which was considered to be ritually unclean (Leviticus 15:19-24). Sin had caused the nation to dry up like a fallen leaf driven by the wind (Isaiah 64:6). No one prayed anymore or attempted to cling to God because God had "hidden [God's] face" from them and had given them over to the consequences of their sins (verse 7).

I once saw a quote—maybe it was on a bumper sticker—that went something like this: "If you feel distant from God, just ask yourself, 'Who moved?'" If God seems hidden to us, maybe it is because we have stopped looking for God in the midst of our daily lives. In the Scriptures, heaven is not a far away place "way beyond the blue" as the old song says; but rather it is God's realm, God's dwelling, and it is quite near to us. All we need to do is put down the mirror and open a window into the relationship God wants to share with us. Rather than a booming shout from the clouds, God more often is revealed in the "still small voice" (1 Kings 19:12, King James Version). We can hear if we are focused enough to listen.

Advent reminds us, too, that if we want to see the face of the hidden God, we do not do so by looking up for a heavenly sound and light spectacular. Rather,...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Abingdon Pr
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2008
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0687647118
• ISBN 13: 9780687647118
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 54
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar