Devotion for Tuesday After the Second Sunday of Advent, Year A (ELCA Daily Lectionary)

Above:  But with Her Babe Upon Her Knee, by Florence Edith Storer

Published in 1912

Image Source = Library of Congress

Reproduction Number = LC-USZC4-2669

The Paradoxical Power and Glory of God

DECEMBER 6, 2022

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The Collect:

Stir up your power, Lord God, to prepare the way of your only Son.

By his coming nurture our growth as people of repentance and peace;

through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord,

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

one God, now and forever.  Amen.

–Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), page 18

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The Assigned Readings:

Isaiah 41:14-20

Psalm 21

Romans 15:14-21

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The readings from Isaiah 41 and Romans 15 remind us of the glory and might of God and of the powerlessness of we mere mortals to work anything more than what Lutheran confessions of faith call “civic righteousness.”  It is laudable that we perform good deeds and refrain from committing bad ones as often as we do, but that fact cannot save us from ourselves, from our sin.

Being sure not to detract from divine glory is a recurring theme in the Bible, especially in the Hebrew Bible.  That explains the Tower of Babel, Gideon’s army, et cetera.  Divine glory seems to shine brightly in both grand gestures and in small, unlikely packages.  Such glory is most concentrated in Jesus of Nazareth, the incarnated form of the Second Person of the Trinity.  Among the meanings of the Incarnation is that one should look for divine glory in many places, some of them unpredictable, even mundane.  The paradox of the Incarnation is multifaceted.  One facet is that God, mighty and powerful, assumed the form of a defenseless infant.

So, as we Western Christians prepare for the liturgical celebration of that birth, may we seek and find the glory of God around us, in places expected and otherwise.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

JUNE 26, 2013 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF JEREMIAH, BIBLICAL PROPHET

THE FEAST OF ISABEL FLORENCE HAPGOOD, ECUMENIST

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http://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2013/07/06/the-paradoxical-power-and-glory-of-god/

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