The Blessed Certainty of Salvation

Reflecting on the First Sunday of Advent: One Day after Sunday (Year A)

Scripture

Psalter: Psalm 124

Old Testament: Genesis 8:1-19

Epistle: Romans 6:1-11

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Prayer

Lord of all times, we come into your presence asking your forgiveness. We have failed to live as people of the present. We have wasted our moments, wanting the future now, seeing our dreams as the answer to today’s problems. Rather than seeing your blessing in each day, we have looked backward to glory days that seem glorious only in their passing. Open our eyes to our mission at hand. Open our ears to your message to us today, that we might share in bringing the good news of your salvation to the world. In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.

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Reflection

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, so we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin. But if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus (Romans 6:5-11).

by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

In the midst of the deepest guilt and distress of the people, a voice speaks that is soft and mysterious but full of the blessed certainty of salvation through the birth of a divine child (Isa. 9:6-7). It is still seven hundred years until the time of fulfillment, but the prophet is so deeply immersed in God's thought and counsel that he speaks of the future as if he saw it already, and he speaks of the salvific hour as if he already stood in adoration before the manger of Jesus. “For a child has been born for us.” What will happen one day is already real and certain in God’s eyes, and it will be not only for the salvation of future generations but already for the prophet who sees it coming and for his generation, indeed, for all generations on earth. “For a child has been born for us.” No human spirit can talk like this on its own. How are we who do not know what will happen next year supposed to understand that someone can look forward many centuries? And the times then were no more transparent than they are today. Only the Spirit of God, who encompasses the beginning and end of the world, can in such a way reveal to a chosen person the mystery of the future, so that he must prophesy for strengthening believers and warning unbelievers. This individual voice ultimately enters into the nocturnal adoration of the shepherds (Luke 2:15-20) and into the full jubilation of the Christ-believing community: “For a child has been born for us, a son given to us.”

PRAYER: God of justice and peace, from the heavens you rain down mercy and kindness, that all on earth may stand in awe and wonder before your marvelous deeds. Raise our heads in expectation, that we may yearn for the coming day of the Lord and stand without blame before your Son, Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.

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from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas.