ADVENT: First Sunday and First Week - HOPE

ADVENT: First Sunday and First Week - HOPE

Sunday December 3, 2023

 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906 – 1945) was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian, and founding member of the Confessing Church, who participated in the resistance movement against the Nazis and against its program of euthanasia and genocide of the Jewish people. For his strong opposition to Adolf Hitler’s dictatorship, he was arrested and imprisoned. Accused later of participating in the plots to assassinate the Nazi leader, he was detained in a concentration camp, and finally hanged in 1945, only 23 days before the German surrender.

 

Regarding HOPE he said, “A cell in a prison, where one waits with HOPE … where one is completely dependent on the fact that the door to freedom must be opened from the outside, this is a good picture of ADVENT.”

 

This first week of ADVENT we light and celebrate the candle of HOPE. Writing to the Romans about HOPE, the Apostle Paul said: “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the HOPE of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, HOPE. And HOPE does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” (5:1-5)

 

Dear friend: as you celebrate ADVENT this week, may you feel a rebirth of the HOPE of the glory of God in your life, the HOPE that never puts to shame.

 

 

First Sunday of ADVENT: December 3 – The Candle of HOPE

Isaiah 40:1-5

 

Monday, December 4

Isaiah 51:3+11-15

 

Tuesday, December 5

Isaiah 52:7-10

 

Wednesday, December 6

Isaiah 40:8-13

 

Thursday, December 7

Genesis 3:1-15

 

Friday, December 8

Genesis 15:1-6

 

Saturday, December 9

Deuteronomy 18:15-19

+ 180 DEGREES