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Advent Devotional for Friday, December 19
Hebrews 1:5-14
This passage from Hebrews is one of the epistle readings assigned by the Revised Common Lectionary for Christmas Eve/Christmas Day. As we move through these waning, last days of Advent, moving ever closer to Christmas, we hear the words of this letter as it extols the exalted position of Jesus Christ. In the first verses of Hebrews, the author declares that Christ is above the prophets of the Old Testament; now a similar portrait is painted of a Jesus who is even above the angels in heaven. This is the eternal Christ who was present in the creation and who is eternal even beyond the end of history—whose “years will never end.” This Advent passage reaches so high that it might be better sung than read!
At first glance this may seem to be a strange message, as the author reaches back toward the prophets and upward toward the angels. However, those angels are all about us in the Advent season, aren’t they? They blow their trumpets on sparkling Christmas cards, they top our Christmas trees, and they are “heard on high” in many of the carols we sing. This season is full of angels! Sometimes, as lovely as the angels are, they threaten to eclipse the Babe whose birth they hail.
Come to think of it, many of the things that might draw our attention away from the Christ child are quite lovely in themselves, including many of the most beloved of our Christmas traditions. As much as we love the angels, the carols, the Christmas traditions of hearth and home— as much as we may dream of white Christmases, wondering shepherds and wandering magi—none of these lovely things must eclipse the One born in Bethlehem, who was there in the first, pristine booms of creation itself.
Jesus Christ, who was born higher than the angels for those created only a little lower than the angels: we praise you—for “you are the same, and your years will never end.” Amen.
Blair R. Monie
Professor in the Louis H. and Katherine S. Zbinden Distinguished Chair of Pastoral Ministry and Leadership
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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