Full Measure Advent 2024 Day 9

Friends,

As a substitute for Facebook Live (We were not able to get on FB this evening). Read the Advent Reading for Day 9, read by Elizabeth Cumberbatch Here:

Full Measure Advent Celebration 2024 Lamentation/Expectation

Week 2 Peace

READER: ELIZABETH CUMBERBATCH

DAY 9

Scriptures: Isaiah 19: 19-25, Colossians 1: 17b-20

In that day there will be an altar to the Lord in the heart of Egypt, and a monument to the Lord at its border. 20 It will be a sign and witness to the Lord Almighty in the land of Egypt. When they cry out to the Lord because of their oppressors, he will send them a savior and defender, and he will rescue them. 21 So the Lord will make himself known to the Egyptians, and in that day they will acknowledge the Lord. They will worship with sacrifices and grain offerings; they will make vows to the Lord and keep them. 22 The Lord will strike Egypt with a plague; he will strike them and heal them. They will turn to the Lord, and he will respond to their pleas and heal them.

23 In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. The Assyrians will go to Egypt and the Egyptians to Assyria. The Egyptians and Assyrians will worship together. 24 In that day Israel will be the third, along with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing[b] on the earth. 25 The Lord Almighty will bless them, saying, “Blessed be Egypt my people, Assyria my handiwork, and Israel my inheritance.”

He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

READING

The scripture from the prophet Isaiah chapter 19 was quoted in an article from Inherit Magazine by Haneen Gullberg about Hagar.  Gullberg has dual ethnic identity. Her father is an Arab Palestinian and her mother Jewish.  Gullberg explores the bittersweet nature of Hagar as the matriarch of people who identify as Arab. 

Indeed, Hagar’s narrative is juxtaposed between three cultures and in her and her son Ismael, lies the promise of peace between all cultures, ethnicities and indeed all humanity. 

Hagar is enslaved by Jewish patriarch, Abram (later known as Abraham) and Jewish matriarch, Sarai (later known as Sarah).  We know that later in history, Sarai’s descendants are enslaved by Hagar’s people the Egyptians.  The tables were turned.

This is the saga of humanity.  Because of sin and rebellion against God, there is a perpetual search for the domination of one people group over the other.

It is so sad, because God has created humanity to love the Lord, their God will all their hearts, minds, and strength and to love their neighbor as they love themselves. But greed, violence, and lust for power drive humans to try to exalt themselves above one another and subjugate others under their power. 

There was a power differential between Hagar and Sarah.  And in some sense they are pitted against one another around the question of inheritance.   Sarah barren and impatient to produce God’s promised heir, gives subjugated Hagar to her husband, Abram to use as a surrogate, to bear a child, hopefully a son.

Fruitful Hagar produces an heir, Ismael and Abram circumcised him, after God confirms, covenant with Abram.

Later Sarah conceives and bares Issac from her own womb. Issac is circumcised as a mark of God’s covenant and when he is weaned, Sarah,  jealous of Hagar and  her son, demands that Abram send Ismael and Hagar away, so as not to share Issac’s inheritance with Ishmael. 

Abram obeys Sarai a second time sending Hagar and Ismael packing in to the wilderness with water and bread. The meager supplies soon run out and Hagar puts Ismael under a bush and goes a distance from him, not wanting to watch her son die.

But God see Hagar and honors her with a promise that her son to will be a great patriarch, whose many descendent will fight incessantly with the descendants of Issac.

God in God’s covenant with Abram, tells Abram that he will have many descendants and that they will be enslaved in Egypt for 400 year and that God will deliver them for their torturous enslavement. 

So, Egyptians, Arabs and Jews are entwined throughout history. These three people groups are intertwined in their  power struggles, enslavement of each other, procreating, fighting, wars,  defeat and victory rinse and repeat. 

And Isaiah prophesies the end of these intertwined humans. 
There will be a rescuer that will once and for all bring peace between the people of Hagar, the Arabs and the Jews and include the Egyptians in this peace.   Christ the anointed one through his blood and in his own body, brings peace between God and humanity and humans to humans.   

We mourn, the newest iteration of the enmity in Gaza, but even in our grief and lamentation we know the Prince of Peace, will ultimately heal the fractures and make us one, at peace with God and each other.  Hallelujah!

Prayer:

Thank you, God our creator, you have given us an inheritance that is imperishable.  We lament warring against one another. We recount the grievous things we have done to each other in the name of defending our people, their legacy, their power.  Forgive us for not celebrating our differences, as unique reflections of your image and likeness in the earth and instead weaponizing our differences to cause division, hostility, seeking power over instead of power-shared. Forgive us, Lord.  Help us to seek peace and reconciliating rather than division. Amen.

LIGHTING OF PEACE AND HOPE CANDLES

DISMISSAL