Description
Contents
Lesson 1
Keep Awake
Scripture: Mark 13:24-37 (NRSVUE)
Key Theme— Advent begins at the wrong end of the story. The first Sunday of the season does not look toward Bethlehem but toward the return of Christ, and the church reads about a darkened sun and a master who comes home unannounced. The hope this week is not a mood. It is the expectation of someone who is actually coming back, and the instruction that goes with it is to stay awake and keep working.
Lesson 2
What Then Should We Do?
Scripture: Luke 3:1-18 (NRSVUE)
Key Theme— The second week of Advent belongs to John the Baptist, who arrives in the wilderness telling people to prepare a road. When the crowds ask him what that means in practice, he does not describe a religious experience. He talks about coats, food, honest accounting, and the abuse of official power. Preparing the way turns out to be a matter of what we do with what we have.
Lesson 3
Are You the One?
Scripture: Matthew 11:2-11; Isaiah 35:1-10 (NRSVUE)
Key Theme— The third week of Advent is traditionally the week of joy, and the Gospel reading for it is a question sent from a prison cell. John the Baptist, who announced Jesus, asks whether he was right. Jesus answers with a list drawn from Isaiah, and the list leaves out the one item John most needed. The joy of this season is real, and it is not the same thing as everything working out.
Lesson 4
God With Us
Scripture: Matthew 1:18-25 (NRSVUE)
Key Theme— Matthew tells the story of the birth from Joseph’s side, and it begins with a man deciding what to do about a woman who is pregnant and not by him. He is called righteous, and his righteousness shows itself as an unwillingness to expose her. Then an angel changes his plan, and the child is given two names: Jesus, who saves, and Emmanuel, God with us.