Strengthen Your Hearts

I’ve had quite a few church members and friends who’ve had various cardio-related problems.  Part of their recuperation was in going to rehab centers or gyms to swim, lift or engage in other heart-strengthening exercises.  The hopeful season of Advent is big on heart strength:  many of us affirm that God has come to bind up the captives and to set the prisoner free.  There are daily reminders that, despite the perceived chaos, the Lord of Life has come to renew our hearts  for kingdom citizenship.  Lessons for this First Sunday of Advent are designed to help the disciple acknowledge society’s brokenness AND to move beyond this into a hopeful expectation that God is already unfolding redemption all about us…

Jeremiah 33:14-16 can stand without too much explication:  the promise is even now being fulfilled, a Righteous Branch will spring up, and this Messiah shall preside over a golden age of justice.  “You must be joking, Jeremiah,” scoff the people.  “Can’t you see what a mess we’re in?”  Even though the Temple, that bastion of God’s Presence, is crumbling–and with it, all Judaism–Jeremiah calls the terror-stricken of all ages to see the future, to appreciate GOD’s future.  I yearn for his confidence.

Paul’s Epistle, I Thessalonians, is filled with the Good Speech so often called a Benediction.  I especially like 3:13,  “And may [the Lord] so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless…”  The Advent-watcher recognizes that the gems of holiness amidst the sawdust of human glory are heavenly inspired.  The salvation we claim to crave comes by allowing our hearts to be exercised from beyond ourselves.

What signs are recognizable today?  Luke’s sources remember that Jesus spoke about the powers of the heavens…those things that are ALWAYS stable…being shaken (Luke 21:25-36).  Some social and political structures NEED to tumble before the New Age of God’s Kingdom can be ushered in. The appropriate response of the Believer is to “stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”  To “stand before the Son of Man” involves unfolding from our fetal position, to stop hiding and to skip forward into the cosmos!

Reuben P. Job has some good thoughts about this potentially exciting Season:  “We do get another chance!  The Season of Advent gives the church the opportunity to begin again.  Once more the full story of God’s grace is awaiting our discovery.  Once more we shake off the failures and victories of the past, and we get a clean page on which to write the story of our companionship with God in Christ….Advent marks the beginning of the church year and lays before us the pathway of faith for the year ahead.”  (A GUIDE TO PRAYER FOR ALL WHO SEEK GOD, p.20)  “The stories of Advent are dug from the harsh soil of human struggle and the littered landscape of dashed dreams.  They are told from the vista where sin still reigns supreme and hope has gone on vacation.”  (Gary W. Charles, in FEASTING on the WORD, C 1:3)  Yet may they strengthen your hearts…

God Bless Us, Every One                        Horace Brown King

My encounters with scriptural passages assigned to the coming weekend can be found every Tuesday at this space on Facebook; or at horacebrownking.com