First Sunday in Advent
The Light of the Hope of the Prophets
“The people walking in darkness have seen a great light. . .” Isaiah 9:2a
Advent season – a time of anticipation… a time of preparation… As we light the first candle, we see the first flicker of hope – light in a dark world. At first, the prophets – even the angels – were mystified by the exact nature of that “hope”.
Progressive Revelation was God’s chosen means of making His purpose clear. The special gift of a Messiah, a Redeemer, was revealed bit by bit – each added element of information, a clue in the “mystery” which we now know to be Jesus Christ. Early “clues” were deliberately vague, but each clue shed greater light in a world darkened by sin. Over centuries, clue upon clue, light upon light – a pattern emerged until the world was ablaze with light – the birth of Christ! Light of Life.
This first week of Advent let us prepare our hearts as we ponder with Lilias some “clues” that anticipate the hope and light of The Messiah.
O most Mighty! O most Mighty!
Far beyond the seraph’s thought,
Art thou then so mean and lowly,
As unheeded prophets taught?
O the magnitude of meekness!
Worth from worth immortal sprung;
O the strength of infant weakness,
If eternal is so young!
-Christopher Smart
SCRIPTURE
Light in Darkness – Isaiah 9:1-7
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First Monday in Advent
The morning star is so perfectly marvellous these days. It hangs in the dawn like a great globe of silver fire. Of all the images of Christ it seems the one that is almost more than an image – it is so utterly like Him in its pure glory. And it sets one’s heart crying for the promise “I will give him the morning star” – the revelation of Himself to the watching ones. January 1899
“And we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.” 11 Peter 1:19
SCRIPTURE
The Plan – Genesis 1:26-31
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First Tuesday in Advent
This is the true inward vision, the faith of seeing, as distinct from the faith of deductive proof. It is an illumination that abides from the beginning, not merely flashes of light that visit you from time to time when you have reached a certain stage. For this light is not to be sought within the recesses of your being but outside yourself and away in another, even in Him who God has sent to be the Light of the World. Once for all, here and now, this light will break on you if you lift up your eyes and behold Jesus Christ with the spiritual vision of the soul. ~ Lilias Trotter (Sevenfold Secret)
“I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness. John 12:46
SCRIPTURE
Paradise Lost – Genesis 3:1-24
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First Wednesday in Advent
Our meeting place with God and our beholding His glory, lies not in our going up to Him, but in His coming down to us in the person of Jesus Christ our Lord. “God who commended the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ,” the divine radiance for our souls. ~ Lilias Trotter (The Sevenfold Secret)
SCRIPTURE
The Promise – Genesis 3:15, Genesis 22:15-18
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First Thursday in Advent
The sun must come to us, that is clear, for we cannot go to it. It sends forth its rays, we know not how. They are of one nature with the sun and come down to earth, and bring the sun as it were to our doors, but with its light and warmth softened till we can bear the radiance and rejoice in it. ~ Lilias Trotter (The Sevenfold Secret)
“For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts
to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”
11 Corinthian 4:6
SCRIPTURE
The Plan Unfolds – Jeremiah 23:5-6
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First Friday in Advent
For if the Sun of Righteousness has risen upon our hearts there is an ocean of grace and love and power lying all around us, an ocean to which all earthly light is but a drop, and it is ready to transfigure us, as the sunshine transfigured the dandelion,and on the same condition – that we stand full face to God. ~ Lilias Trotter (Focussed)
SCRIPTURE
Details Revealed – Micah 5:2, Isaiah 7:10-14
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First Saturday in Advent
“Until the daystar arises in your hearts” – that has been lit up these last days with a sense of God’s unfolding: the inner revelation of the coming Jesus that must come before the outward. Such an absolutely new thing as when this morning star flashes up from behind the dark ridge of distant mountains – poised for an instant like a flame kindled on the crest and then soaring slowly upward. ~ Lilias Trotter (21 January 1899)
SCRIPTURE
Prepare for His Coming – Malachi 3:1; Luke 1:76; John 1:6-9