Advent_Devotional

Susan Shafer, Pastor Emerita Bonnie Matthaidess, Spiritual Director Journeying With Jesus in Life-giving Resurrection A Lenten Devotional – 2025 {{page}} Can You Imagine... an Advent Devotional Susan Shafer, Pastor Emerita Bonnie Matthaidess, Spiritual Director Cover photo by Glen Peck These four meditations for this Advent Season come to you from our own spiritual journeys as we Meditate upon the meaning of the Biblical Advent story. Each Monday of Advent, these devotions arrive accompanied by our prayers for each of you. We pray that this sacred season will help you hear the story anew—its gentle invitation and enduring inspiration for us all. May you come to recognize, perhaps in a deeper way, the presence of God in Christ that carries us far beyond Advent and Christmas. And may you also discern something new about your own life and the indwelling Spirit of God within you, as together we live in faithful relationship with the holy story of this season. ”O Holy Child of Bethlehem Be born in us this day Come to us, abide in and within us Our Lord Emmanuel." Rev. Susan Shafer, Asbury First Pastor Emerita Ms. Bonnie Matthaidess, Spiritual Director {{page}} Advent 2025 Introduction Can You Imagine... Streams of Light "The Annunciation" by Henry Ossawa Tanner Advent 2025 "Greetings, Oh Favored One" Luke 1:28-29 {{page}} Week One Week One Advent 2025 {{page}} Artists through the centuries have depicted Mary receiving her message from God that she is carrying God’s Beloved Son. In a favorite depiction of mine, similar to the one pictured above, Mary is sitting on a bench in a garden, as if in meditation or prayer, as streams of light beam upon her. In those moments, it's as if through the light, Mary—grounded in deep prayer, communal sensitivity, and celebration—"knows" she is sitting in the presence of the loving Creator, and her life dramatically changes. She now knows of the "indwelling" Spirit of God. According to the American Heritage dictionary, the root of the name Mary is the Hebrew Miryam meaning “rebellion.” The presence of God made known through these “streams of Light” comes to one in a land amid conflict with political authorities and actions against her people; this young maiden, through God’s Spirit of unconditional, love becomes God’s “hope for change”! Holy is the place within me where God lives”! The author Ann Johnson in her book Miryam of Nazareth speaks of this "life transforming happening" in this way: Forever now in the life of humankind people will sing of this loving encounter; through remembering this moment, the faithful will know all things are possible in God. God's tender streams of light reach out from age to age to touch the softened inner spaces of those who open their souls in hope. And that re-telling brings each of us this Advent Season where we carry within us the knowledge and impetus to open the innermost spaces of our hearts to encounters with the Loving Creator. God’s encounter with Mary in the expectancy of Jesus is also a metaphoric message for us about the amazing encounters with God offered to us day by day. In prayer, we can turn our souls inward . . . in awe with the firm beats of our hearts, we can listen for God’s interactions . . . in stillness we can reach out, mind reflecting, inviting God to inspire us. The loving God can stream into our being calling us to carry the loving Spirit of God within us. The message of God can be told through us as it was through Mary so long ago, but differently. May we open our souls in hope this day and every day. REFLECTION: Do you believe that God’s indwelling Spirit can be in you? What do you hope for or what have you experienced in your life in the encounter with the Holy? What would another encounter be like? Pray for it! Streams of Light {{page}} Streams of Light Week One Advent 2025 {{page}} "lady in the mist" - pxhere creative commons Leaning Into... "Hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us." Romans 5:5 Week Two Advent 2025 {{page}} Advent 2025 CAN YOU IMAGINE . . . leaning into the frustrations and uncertainties of each day while being pressed in from all sides by the challenges of your personal life as well as the chaos of the world? I imagine many of us can. CAN YOU IMAGINE . . . leaning into your deep desire to draw near to Compassionate God for rest, comfort and glimpses of peace? I’m hopeful many of us can. CAN YOU IMAGINE . . . this Advent season leaning into God’s promises to be with you in all circumstances and to grant you strength, patience and perseverance? My prayer is that we, with Christ’s help, can. CAN YOU IMAGINE . . . an invitation that draws us into the story again of birthings, new beginnings and fresh starts as we enter the church’s New Year? We celebrate the birth of Jesus and an invitation to lean into the Incarnation, for God takes on flesh in and through Jesus Christ, who would come and is with us now, bringing wholeness, healing and redemption in each new day. CAN YOU IMAGINE . . .that in the midst of today’s troubled world Jesus calls us into a season of Hope? Yes, Hope – and he invites us to be collaborators with him in re-creating the reality of the world in which we live. Leaning into this hope, may there be born in us an intentionality to nurture our faith in Jesus Christ so that we may experience His Light and Presence at work in our lives and the world. CAN YOU IMAGINE . . . REFLECTION: Imagine what you are leaning into today - news of doom and gloom? news that is divisive? messages of hope and inspiration? – what is the source of these messages? What emotions are drawn from you? What do you desire to be born in you? Week Two Leaning Into... Leaning Into... Week Two Advent 2025 {{page}} "a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to throw away; a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace." Ecclesiastes 3:6-8 Week Three {{page}} Advent 2025 Turn, Turn... "The Four Seasons" by Antonio Vivaldi Advent 2025 Turn, Turn... Can You Imagine? “Turn Turn Turn” Just recently in a conversation with friends, one of the participants spoke of “always learning something new from interactions with God’s people. I never come away from a conversation or a happening in my life without an uncovering of myself and a new discovery within me! I am always learning something new about me or another.” What an interesting and show-stopping statement that was to me! For a moment I had to wonder about myself and others. Can you imagine if we approached our lives and interactions in such a way that we believed the indwelling Spirit of God makes each moment a possibility to grow in our understanding of our spiritual lives and grow in understanding others? ’Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free, ’Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be, And when we find ourselves in the place just right, ’Twill be in the valley of love and delight. When true simplicity is gained, To bow and to bend we shan’t be ashamed, To turn, turn will be our delight, Till by turning, turning we come ’round right.   —Shaker tune Simple Gifts by Joseph Brackett (1848) God’s gift of the indwelling Spirit in Mary and in Jesus, is not only a gift of a baby; it is a gift of possibility for birthing, re-birth, restoration, and reconsecration of our own hearts and minds. It is the knowledge and proclamation that the indwelling Spirit of God is in each of us. As we recognize and proclaim that Spirit we can grow more deeply in the Spirit of God … we can be moved to by the Holy Spirit within us to see, to feel, and to be born anew. In your life and mine, as we trust and acknowledge God’s presence, we turn, and are turned, and made new again and again. The Christmas story in all its beauty and pageantry and celebration, is also God’s entrance into our lives, not only into Mary’s. This knowledge continues well beyond the happy festivities of Christmas. It is a powerful, gentle message of the Spirit that grows and dwells within each of us. May our lives be deepened in this Advent and Christmas season through the gift of God’s Spirit! God created and is creating! God comes in the true person, Jesus to reconcile and make new God works in us and others by the Spirit. We trust in God! — A Modern Affirmation, The United Methodist Hymnal, No. 885 (adapted from The Korean Methodist Church Affirmation of Faith)  May that same Spirit work within you and make you new this season. May you find yourself turning and turning—until you come out experiencing and proclaiming God’s power of love anew. REFLECTION: Can you imagine a new turning in your relationship with God? What might you want it to be? {{page}} Week Three Week Three Turn, Turn... {{page}} Advent 2025 "Sleeping Lake" by Donovan Bree Wake up... "You know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to Wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now..." Romans 13:11 Week Four Advent 2025 {{page}} Wake up... Week Four Advent invites us to Wake Up! Perhaps it is a gentle nudging—or a strong shaking—that is required to open our eyes to what has always surrounded us. It is all too easy to become absorbed in the demands of our daily lives and overwhelmed by the relentless news of our world’s pain and darkness. Wake Up words from Toni Morrison: “I know that the world is bruised and bleeding, and though it is important not to ignore its pain, it is also critical to refuse to succumb to its malevolence.” —Toni Morrison, “No Place for Self-Pity, No Room for Fear,”  The Nation, March 23, 2015 Wake up! A new day is dawning. The remembrance of Christ’s birth is near, and with it, an invitation within each of us to breathe anew and give birth to the promises of God. Now, today, the Light of this new dawning calls us to see more clearly, that by seeing we may know where to go and whom to follow. Now is the time to follow Jesus Christ more closely, for in turning to Him more intimately we grow ever deeper in the love of Christ, a love that is, by its very nature, meant to be shared. Wake Up. Be alert. It is time for courage. Now is not the time to run away. Let’s stand together as new creations in Christ and let His light shine. REFLECTION: In what areas of your life are you being called to Wake Up? What will that look like for you? Give thanks to God for being totally alive in you. {{page}} Advent 2025 {{page}} Week Five "Star over Bethlehem" - Artist Unknown "For a child has been born for us, a son given to us..." Isaiah 9:6 Christmas Season... Advent 2025 Christmas Season... Advent 2025 “Just Because” Recently a new neighbor moved in across the street. She has befriended me in remarkable ways during these six months of convalescence that I have had to endure due to my fall and broken back. Among other kindnesses from others, deeply appreciated, she does something that profoundly stirs in me. (It also reminds me of my grandson saying to me: “Grandma, do you see God in everything?”) Her name is Sheree. She has dropped off bouquets of freshly picked wild flowers and placed them on my front porch, a beautiful orchid has sat next to my chair where I have spent hours and hours. A caprese salad came one night for dinner, a candle came to light while she and a wonderful group went to Tuscany while I stayed home to heal. One evening she stopped in, and I told her I did not know how to thank her for her expressed care and thoughtfulness. And then it came: ”Susan, I do not give Christmas gifts at Christmas, I like to give gifts all year long when I see something that might be a gift another might enjoy. I call the gifts ‘just because.’” I have pondered just because for a month or so now. On this Christmas Day, we will exchange gifts and some of us will gather with family, others sadly, will not; and then the “celebration” will be over. We will have been reminded of God’s gift through Mary of Jesus whose ways could change our whole world, though it does not seem to be happening. So, on this Sacred Day, I wonder; and invite you to wonder and pray with me: Could it ever be possible that God’s gifts are just because?... Just because we are God’s people and God knew and knows how much the gift of love can transform us and our world? Could it be that the gift of Jesus is “just because” our world needs the gift of Light, Love, Reconciliation, Generosity? Could it be that these gifts are invitations to change darkness into light each day of our lives? Christmas comes and goes and it is sacred; yet, I do not believe it was meant to be only a one day or one week celebration. Perhaps we are called to live in the understanding of just because and just because God came in Jesus to recognize and make new and to proclaim us as God’s gift and gift giving people in our world, Christmas is not simply one day of receiving and giving but a day to be reminded that just because we are loved and are to love… perhaps then our world could be loving and loved. Just a hope, just a prayer OR a possibility to be more of whom we are called to be beyond this Sacred Day of recognizing God’s giving  just because. Week Five {{page}} Advent 2025 Turn, Turn... Week Three {{page}} 1050 East Avenue, Rochester, NY 14607 • (585) 271-1050 www.asburyfirst.org Love God and Neighbor. Live Fully. Serve All. Repeat.