Pastor’s Corner
Planting the Seed
Four weeks of proclamation and prayer:
Come! Intervene. Ignite our world. Set things right.
Comfort! Forgive. Restore. Be present.
Create! Let your vision for the world break forth to us and through us—shalom.
And this fourth and final week of Advent, Plant!
And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more. … I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.
2 Samuel 7:10, 12-13
When I first chose the word “plant” for this Sunday, I had in mind an agricultural metaphor, drawn from God’s promise to David to plant Israel in a land of peace and blessing and intimacy with him. But then the story of Mary that we will read in Luke turned my imagination toward a different kind of “planting.”
All God’s promises to Abraham, to David, to Israel and the prophets are channeled into this remarkable moment of a teenage girl’s faith in response to an eternal God’s faithfulness. And Mary’s “yes” – “Here I am, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” – results in the Lord planting within her the Seed of the Kingdom, Jesus, the One through whom the Kingdom comes.
And that Seed has been planted within us, the people of Immanuel.
Tonight at 8pm is our final Advent Compline together (https://tinyurl.com/IAC-Advent-Compline with password “Advent”), and next Tuesday will be our final Advent Midday Prayer at noon (https://tinyurl.com/IAC-Advent-Midday-Prayer with password “Advent”).
Please be sure to read the Special Announcement email that went out last night, announcing that we will be resuming in-person worship this upcoming Sunday. This also means that we will have a Christmas Eve service at 7pm, both at Gray’s and via livestream. The homily on this important evening will be a wonderful video of our Immanuel Kids presenting the “Alphabet Nativity Poem”! Please be sure to pre-register if you would like to attend in person.
Your Pastor in Christ,
Travis+