Day 6

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A Season of Praise

Day Six – Saturday, December 10

Praise God’s Changing Sameness

Today’s Reading

O shepherd of Israel, hearken, from your throne upon the cherubim, shine forth….
Once again, O LORD of hosts, look down from heaven, and see;
Take care of this vine, and protect what your right hand has planted….
Then we will no more withdraw from you….
Lord, make us turn to you; let us see your face and we shall be saved.

(Psalm 80)

Fr. Knight’s Reflection

   God doesn’t change. The “God of power and might” in the Jewish Scriptures has the same face as the loving Father Jesus described. But God keeps correcting the inadequate images we have of him. Praise God for that.

   John the Baptizer was the “second Elijah,” precursor and preview of the Messiah. John’s disciples did not recognize this, because Elijah was a man “like fire,” powerful and violent. But when Herod arrested John, even Jesus left him weak and alone in prison until he was beheaded.

   In John, as in Jesus, God revealed his glory in a new way, wrapped in weakness and humility. Yet the face of the “suffering servant” described by Isaiah (53:2) is the same face that “shone like the sun” when Jesus was transfigured (Matthew 17:2).

   We praise God for his “changing face” that keeps us from restricting God’s image to any limited perception of him.

   We praise Jesus for revealing himself as both beautiful and ugly in his sinful and sanctifying church—in the choices of her saints and the challenge of her sinners, in teaching dogmas with fidelity and developing doctrines with freedom, and in preserving the past, adapting to the present, and feeling her way into the future. Praise God for the face of Jesus, always changing, yet “the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). Praise God for his predictability and unpredictability.

Copyright by David Knight.  Used by permission of Twenty-Third Publications.

For Your Reflection or Discussion

In what way(s) has your image of God—your understanding of God—changed over the past ten years? …since you were a child?

Daily Practice

Praise the changing face of God.

Advent Prayer

Father, all powerful and ever-living God,
we do well always and everywhere to give you thanks
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

When he humbled himself to come among us,
he fulfilled the plan you formed long ago 

and opened for us the way to salvation.

Now we watch for the day,

when Christ will come again in his glory.

And so, with all the choirs of angels in heaven

we proclaim your glory
and join in their unending hymn of praise.