By Marcia Yost, director of the arts
Scripture: Luke 3:1-6 (NRSV)
Life is certainly not perfect. In fact, we find our lives being challenged in many ways dealing with the changes thrust upon us in the past 18 months. However, in both these biblical passages we are promised something more for our lives. Paul talks to the Phillipians with confidence that the One who began a good work among them will bring it to completion. In Luke 3:5, the prophet Isaiah shares “every valley will be filled.”
We are all a work in progress, we need the courage that allows us to dare to imagine what the ending outcome is for our good work or our lives. I have heard this described as a young artist working on a painting asking a friend “How do you like it?” The response is not the rave review expected, to which the young artist responds “You may not see what I see right now but I see the finished product which is going to be my best work!” This is the essence of how God will bring our good work to completion. Amidst all the change we have experienced, we need to take the opportunity this Advent to reimagine what our good work is and how we will live that out in the light of Christ. Our lives are not perfect but in God’s hands and given God’s promises we can and should imagine forward remembering the power of hope found in the proverbial “yet.”
Scripture: Luke 3:1-6 (NRSV)
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, 2during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, 4as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. 5Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; 6and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”