Dear Friends,
It’s the season of Advent as I write to you. I love this time of year. Advent invokes a posture of waiting, recognizing our need and anticipating the arrival of the Messiah. The below reflection is one of my favorites this year. Jesus not only identifies with our poverty but is guarunteed present in it. This is one of the reasons WMF exists—because we have found Jesus among the poorest people in the world and we want to be near Him. In our own lives too it seems that Jesus is most recognizable in our impoverished condition.
Some of our friends in the majority world who are struggling to find their next meal or suffering injustices of the commercial sex trade or the affects of war, surprise us with their experience of God’s comfort and provision. And those of us in the minority world who enjoy relative affluence, are also invited to recognize Jesus in our need. During this season let us find courage to face and name the needs in our lives, that we might recognize the presence and provision of Christ.
Verses: Malachi 3:1-4; Luke 1:68-79; Philippians 1:3-11; Luke 3:1-6
Theme: God arrives in places of poverty in our lives.
Prayer:
‘Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.’ (NASB)
‘You’re blessed when you’ve lost it all. God’s kingdom is there for the finding…” (The Message)
“The gospels paint us beautiful portraits of how Our God comes to us in the midst of great poverty. The age of Elizabeth, Gabriel’s annunciation to Mary, no room in the inn, enemies out to get the newborn, all surround the central mystery – our God is faithful. Our God’s fidelity is not only not limited by great poverty, it is most apt in places of great poverty. The way the nativity happened then can tell us a great deal about the “style” of our God. And, it can open our eyes and our expectation to the places of great poverty in our lives now. Whenever I ask, “How can this be a place of promise?” or “How can I expect God to be present in this mess?” I am being invited to experience the mystery of the Incarnation in my life. Eventually, I begin to look for and to really anticipate special intimacy with Jesus in the difficult, challenging, painful, empty, power-less situations of my life. If I desire to find intimacy with God in all things, I’ll pay special attention to the poverty places of my life.”
creighton.edu/collaborativeministry/advent
Love, respect,
Phileena, for the two of us