The Upper Room Daily Devotional – “1st Sunday of Advent” Sunday, 1 December 2013 Read Isaiah 52

The Upper Room Daily Devotional – “1st Sunday of Advent” Sunday, 1 December 2013

Read Isaiah 52: Let Zion Rejoice

1 Awake, awake,

    put on your strength, O Zion!

Put on your beautiful garments,

    O Jerusalem, the holy city;

for the uncircumcised and the unclean

    shall enter you no more.

2 Shake yourself from the dust, rise up,

    O captive[a] Jerusalem;

loose the bonds from your neck,

    O captive daughter Zion!

3 For thus says the Lord: You were sold for nothing, and you shall be redeemed without money. 4 For thus says the Lord God: Long ago, my people went down into Egypt to reside there as aliens; the Assyrian, too, has oppressed them without cause. 5 Now therefore what am I doing here, says the Lord, seeing that my people are taken away without cause? Their rulers howl, says the Lord, and continually, all day long, my name is despised. 6 Therefore my people shall know my name; therefore in that day they shall know that it is I who speak; here am I.

7 How beautiful upon the mountains

    are the feet of the messenger who announces peace,

who brings good news,

    who announces salvation,

    who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”

8 Listen! Your sentinels lift up their voices,

    together they sing for joy;

for in plain sight they see

    the return of the Lord to Zion.

9 Break forth together into singing,

    you ruins of Jerusalem;

for the Lord has comforted his people,

    he has redeemed Jerusalem.

10 The Lord has bared his holy arm

    before the eyes of all the nations;

and all the ends of the earth shall see

    the salvation of our God.

Footnotes:

Isaiah 52:2 Cn: Heb rise up, sit(NRSV)

Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.(Psalm 30:5 (NRSV))

I could not bring myself to say, “Merry Christmas.” I knew my friend’s Christmas would be overshadowed by concern for her child. As we sang “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,” about Israel’s mourning in exile and crying out to the Lord for deliverance, I was reminded of my friend and her child. Each was held captive in “lonely exile” from the joy of the Christmas season. I also thought that while the church marches through Advent in a month, our personal journeys through Advent may take much longer. When we have a difficult child, a dying spouse, a bout of depression, a crushing disease, a failing marriage, a loss of income, or another seismic shift in our lives, we, like Israel, mourn “in lonely exile,” crying out for the Son of God to appear in our lives. Looking back over unhappy times in my own life, I wondered, Is crying out for the Lord a cry of despair or a cry of hope? Instinctively, I have known that I could not give up hope. Hope carries me through the weeks, months, or years of “lonely exile” and into the peace, love, and joy promised in Jesus Christ.(The Author-Cindy Love (Texas, USA))

Thought for the Day: “Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.”

Prayer: Dear God, grant us courage to hope and to persevere through bleak times in our lives so that we may know the joy you offer. Amen.

Prayer Focus: Someone experiencing a time of lonely exile

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