On this final Sunday of Advent, we are setting our hearts toward love. A consensus around the definition of “love” may be difficult to come by, but the Story we share in this community offers us not a definition, but a Person named Immanuel, God-With-Us. In Immanuel we find the Eternal One entering into our frailty and uncertainty and regarding us as God sees us: beloved.
•Reflect on moments you have experienced glimmers of the love of God, whether in matters of circumstance or through your neighbor.
•Reflect on moments where you may have been an agent of love in the way you have offered attention or concern to your neighbors.
•Take a moment to wonder how you might lean into the Love around you, both in your awareness of acts of Love and in your own loving of God, your neighbor, and your self.
In the midst of these thin, gloomy days, a Light is coming; in spite of all of the complexity of sin, uncertainty, human failure, and injustice, God is choosing to be God with us, Immanuel. Looking toward this moment of brilliance, we light the fourth candle.
[Light Love Candle]
Hear now a word of the migrant love of God in 2 Samuel:
Now when the king was settled in his house, and the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies around him, the king said to the prophet Nathan, “See now, I am living in a house of cedar, but the ark of God stays in a tent.” Nathan said to the king, “Go, do all that you have in mind; for the Lord is with you.”
But that same night the word of the Lord came to Nathan: Go and tell my servant David: Thus says the Lord: Are you the one to build me a house to live in? I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent and a tabernacle. Wherever I have moved about among all the people of Israel, did I ever speak a word with any of the tribal leaders of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, “Why have you not built me a house of cedar?” Now therefore thus you shall say to my servant David: Thus says the Lord of hosts: I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep to be prince over my people Israel; and I have been with you wherever you went, and have cut off all your enemies from before you; and I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth. And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may live in their own place, and be disturbed no more; and evildoers shall afflict them no more, as formerly, from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel; and I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house.
Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me; your throne shall be established forever.