Puddleglum's Pensees

Click here for audio. Three weeks ago, we likened Advent to getting ready for a guest. Even as we tidy our homes, do some baking, perhaps prepare a meal fancier than the usual fare when we know someone’s coming over, so we have been—or maybe “ought” to have been—preparing our hearts and lives to receive the Lord Jesus. Of course the focus in both sorts of preparing at this time of year is Christmas. How can it not be? But we’re wise to remember that Advent is about the Lord’s coming. Yes, his coming into the “tent” of our flesh, as John puts it, but also his coming for us at our deaths and his glorious appearing at the end of time as we know it. We have stood with the prophets, imploring God to open the heavens and come down. We have stood knee-deep in Jordan river, listening to the wild-eyed preacher call us to repentance. Last week, we sang with Mary, “My soul is filled with joy, when I sing of God my Saviour. Everlasting is your mercy to the people you have chosen!” and refl...

“God, you have to get me out of this!” How many of you have ever prayed that prayer? I’ve prayed it lots of times over the course of my life. I thank God that it was never in a major crisis, because I’ve never had one. The ones I’ve thought were big, by the way, have turned out in hindsight not to be so terrible. More often than not, I have found myself with this prayer on my lips when the situation was wholly of my own making. Have you? I’ve done something collosally dumb. I have said something hurtful. I have not done something that needed doing. Whatever the situation, I have often found myself praying that God would rescue me from the consequences of my own stupidity. True for you, too? Whatever the circumstances, this is not necessarily a bad prayer to pray. We find versions of it in the Psalms, for example. Listen to the opening verses of Psalm 116. I love the Lord, for he heard my voice;     he heard my cry for mercy. 2  B...