Day 1

Advent

3. Shepherd’s Candle (Joy)

soft bleating of sheep
borne from the ag barn
where purple jackets
and john deere hats
spread hay in the stalls
boots caked with muck
the smell
of animal selves
everywhere clinging
like muscle to bone
bodies and their needs
water and feed
a season’s shearing
a stream of urine
steaming in the cold
as on the midway
crowds thin and
lights dim

good God almighty
your creatures
and their constant noise
the cattle lowing
the lamb’s small cries
the roosters’ crowing
dying down to the quiet
of rest of awaiting day
in the back of a pickup
a brother and sister glimpse
just over the metal roof
great light

Dr. Brent Newsom

Day 2

A Great Light

All the Stanzas in Brent’s “Advent” poem end with a question except Stanza 3, which ends with “a great light”.

In the first stanza, the narrator is lost in a world drowning in too many words, too much war, among a people with “hardened hearts” who nevertheless ask whether an eternal word can be expected.

In the second stanza, we visit today’s Israel, where we find checkpoints, violence, and division. We ask how long we must wait until we see a “sign of shalom”.

Then in stanza 3, the scene shifts to the sounds and smells in an ag barn as the crowd departs. But “in the back of a pickup / a brother and sister glimpse / just over the metal roof / a great light”. We readers ask the question now: what is this light appearing in its earthy setting?

In stanza 4, the light is a “messenger of God.” This stanza wonderfully explores our reaction to this messenger. We pray that the messenger will “descend like a dove” into our waiting world even as it terrifies us “in our smallness”. But in this Advent season, we watch and listen, in awe asking the messenger, “do you / hear”?

A terrifying possibility is that the messenger hears and responds angrily. In Zephaniah, the LORD declares that He will “pour out upon [the nations] my indignation, / all the heat of my anger” (3:8). However, Zephaniah later anticipates that the Lord “will rejoice over you with gladness, / he will renew you in his love” (3:17). So we wonder in this Advent, “do you hear?” and if so, what do you hear and with what response?

Joe Hall

Day 3

Lisa Vernon

Day 4

Joy is a word you hear all the time at Christmas. We sing about it and see displays about it, but when you hear a word so often, it can lose its meaning. So what really is joy?

My favorite thing about Christmas is easily seeing my extended family. Nothing matches the way it feels to see my aunts and uncles, cousins, and grandparents all in the same place, whether it be sharing a meal or opening presents. I can hardly stop smiling the entire time we’re together. However, that feeling of pure happiness I always feel starts to fade away when it’s time to leave. The way I understand it, happiness is something temporary, but joy is something that lasts forever. The gift God gave us when he sent his son as a “little bundle of joy” lasts forever. The birth of Jesus means that even though the happiness I feel seeing my family at Christmas is temporary, I am joyful because I know that one day I will be with my brothers and sisters in Christ forever. The joy that we feel this time of year doesn’t go away after we take down the tree; we always have a reason to be joyful!

Kiley Sartin

Day 5

Pray that you may see joy even in the pain of daily living. This is not a prayer for naïve optimism but a crying out for the presence and work of God.

Thematic Hymn: “Rejoice, the Lord is King”

1 Rejoice, the Lord is King:
Your Lord and King adore!
Rejoice, give thanks and sing,
And triumph evermore.
Lift up your heart,
Lift up your voice!
Rejoice, again I say, rejoice!

2 Jesus, the Savior, reigns,
The God of truth and love;
When He has purged our stains,
He took his seat above;
Lift up your heart,
Lift up your voice!
Rejoice, again I say, rejoice!

3 His kingdom cannot fail,
He rules o'er earth and heav'n;
The keys of death and hell
Are to our Jesus giv'n:
Lift up your heart,
Lift up your voice!
Rejoice, again I say, rejoice!

4 Rejoice in glorious hope!
Our Lord and judge shall come
And take His servants up
To their eternal home:
Lift up your heart,
Lift up your voice!
Rejoice, again I say, rejoice!

Project: Gather friends, family, and event pets to put on a play about the shepherds. Think about the events described in Luke 2 and act out the scene from the Shepherd perspective.