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Advent Devotional for Thursday, December 2
“... I dug through the wall with my own hands.”
Prophecy predicts the unexpected. Most often, what you see from a distance is not what comes into focus up close. By December 2 a lot of us probably are already pretty tired of Christmas marketing; but up close and personal, some of you might be seeing things in catalogs or online that look like pretty good gifts, especially if you have children or grandchildren.
This far away from God’s activity in a stable in Bethlehem, it is almost unthinkable that God dug out of the wall of a sepulcher in Jerusalem. Don’t get me wrong, I’m as gripped by Christmas as any Jill or Jack. I love pecan sandies and wassail, and I think the Dallas Cowboys might do better, at least with their marketing, if they changed their uniform colors to red and green.
The thing is, I can’t get my mind’s eye off the image of that gnarly, Old Testament prophet digging his way through the dark rubble of his vision of God’s wrath. It is much like contemporary images of people sifting through the rubble of their lives after earthquake, tsunami, forest fire, and flood. Not God’s wrath, but certainly human hell.
I was intrigued recently when I read about Michelangelo Buonarroti’s Pieta. At first glance, it looks like Jesus lies dead in Mary’s lap. But a closer look and one sees life pulsing in the Travertine veins of his arms and hands; the hands of the artist having dug, chiseled, and polished away marble to reveal the miracle inside.
What’s unexpected is that people survive unthinkable tragedy. We dig out, or through. When we think we are too blind to see, scales fall from our eyes; some people escape from captivity; light shines in darkness.
My prayer is that if you feel buried in this holy season you will be able to dig through the walls of your despair with your bare hands. With God’s help may it be so. Amen.
Sam Riccobene
John Knox Ranch Camp Director and Associate Pastor, First Presbyterian Church, Austin, Texas
For the glory of God and to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary is a seminary in the Presbyterian-Reformed tradition whose mission is to educate and equip individuals for the ordained Christian ministry and other forms of Christian service and leadership; to employ its resources in the service of the church; to promote and engage in critical theological thought and research; and to be a winsome and exemplary community of God's people.
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