Advent – Wednesday, First Week

Wednesday, December 4, 2019

Scripture for Today

On that day it will be said:
“Behold our God, to whom we looked to save us!
This is the LORD for whom we looked;
let us rejoice and be glad that he has saved us!”
For the hand of the LORD will rest on this mountain.
Isaiah 25

Advent is a time when we are truly called to waiting in stillness for the promise Isaiah speaks of in the passage above.  We are in the already and not yet time of our salvation.  The seed has been planted but has not yet sprung to life. People who garden from seed know this time well.  After you have prepared the soil and planted the seed, watered and nourished this new life, there is still a time when we wait for the seed to sprout.  I remember the first time I got an egg carton, filled it with potting soil and planted my first flower seeds.  I wasn’t sure how long it took to sprout so I checked several times a day.  After a while I grew impatient and dug up one of the seeds to make sure it was ok.  What I found was a tiny seed, slightly split, with an extremely tiny green stem coming out.  I was amazed, delighted and then alarmed. What if my curiosity and impatience had ruined the tiny life I was observing? I quickly re-covered the seed and added a splash of water just in case!  I got twelve seedlings out of that first planting and I was hooked on planting from seed.  But the part that has stayed with me the most is the time I had to wait for the seed to sprout.  I was stuck by how hard it is to wait when you know something good is coming. How tempting it is to peek and make sure things are going well. And how wonderful it is when the promise comes to fruition.  All of that is part of our faith journey and part of this season of Advent. Waiting for the promise to be fulfilled – this year, this time in our lives, and in this place. Amen.

—Cindy Kennedy

Give us faith to live joyfully, sustained by your promises as we eagerly await the day when they will be fulfilled for all the world to see, through the coming of your Son, Jesus Christ. Amen.

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Some material on this site is adapted from Daily Prayer, Daily Bread, published by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Medaille in 2004, and is used with the permission of the Editor and Project Director, Eleanor Bernstein CSJ.