Second Sunday of Advent

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Use some or all of this reflection to help guide your personal journey through this week of Advent.

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Reflect

Prepare to be expanded.

Author Stephanie Duncan Smith writes of Mary’s yes to God as a choice for expansion over contraction, mirroring God’s own yes in creation:

We also read about John the Baptist. He became the voice for radically shifting the focus. He used a word that isn’t all that popular today: Repentance. At its core it’s about a change …a change that leads to a deeper engagement, so that we and others experience things differently…it is about Expansion.

The prophets, like Isaiah, probably expected to just be regular folk doing regular things. Each of them was changed dramatically…and each in a way led with their actions, their willingness to announce in some way the good news…they expanded and so did those who heard!

Advent is an opportunity for us consider again the ways we might be being led to repent, change, to live within the ways of the Spirit…to as Duncan Smith describes it, expand!

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Read

Matthew 3: 1-12

In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea ²and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” ³This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah:

“A voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.’”

⁴John’s clothes were made of camel’s hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey. ⁵ People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan. ⁶ Confessing their sins, they were baptised by him in the Jordan River.

⁷ But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptising, he said to them: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? ⁸ Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. ⁹ And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. ¹⁰ The axe is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

¹¹ “I baptise you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire. ¹² His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

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Ponder

• How do the stories of folk being changed sit with you?

Could you simply be with one of the people who stand out for you as having been changed, and let their story seep into your soul?

Take Mary, or a prophet or Paul and perhaps make it a part of your week this week to read their story from the beginning and to let yourself feel what it must have been like to be so changed. Does it feel like an expansion?

• Is there something that perhaps has been tugging at you recently or for some time… something that you want to change…to turn away from or more importantly to turn towards?
•  Is expansion something you can imagine, not as the world might but as Mary modelled?

David Grossman, Spring Apple Tree

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Do

It may be that you are already doing something that is a change for you from the first week of advent…maybe it’s enough to continue with that.

It may be there IS an activity attached to your change that you’d like to make real now, or plan for sometime in the future.

It is sometimes helpful to write down what is coming to you as you ponder these things.

• Could you make a list of words that come into mind when you think of ‘repent’, ‘change’, ‘expand’?
• You might just write a few lines or even a poem.

David Grossman, Autumn Tree with Birds, Reaching, Taking Flight

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Prayer

Dear creator and lover of me, I’m coming to understand what Mary and John the Baptist and Isaiah were talking about and living. They knew something was coming. That something was Jesus. That something was life changing and expanding.

It feels like an invitation; to join Isaiah, Mary, and John and simply wait as they did for You to expand me.

Come Lord Jesus, come.

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Listen

Here are some songs that you may like to listen to as you reflect on the week.

Room for More O Come down
written by Jon Markey, an American pastor who works as a missionary in Ukraine

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Voces 8 Magnificat Primi Toni,
Palestrina, English translation below.

1    My soul doth magnify the Lord :
and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.
2    For he hath regarded :
the lowliness of his handmaiden.
3    For behold, from henceforth :
all generations shall call me blessed.
4    For he that is mighty hath magnified me :
and holy is his Name.
5    And his mercy is on them that fear him :
throughout all generations.
6    He hath shewed strength with his arm :
he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
7    He hath put down the mighty from their seat :
and hath exalted the humble and meek.
8    He hath filled the hungry with good things :
and the rich he hath sent empty away.
9    He remembering his mercy hath holpen his servant Israel :
as he promised to our forefathers, Abraham and his seed for ever.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son :
and to the Holy Ghost;
as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be :
world without end. Amen.

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The Porter’s Gate – Psalm 126

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For a printable PDF of the text of this reflection please click on the link below.