An Advent Journey - 2nd December

Read: Deuteronomy 18 vs 15-19

2020 has been a year that has thrown up so many new words and so many new phrases: ‘Social distancing’, ‘self-isolation’, ‘please sanitise your hands’, ‘have you got your mask?’ and so the list goes on. For anyone who is a Zoom user one of the phrases of 2020 has been ‘Can you hear me?’ a phrase usually accompanied by a waving hand and all kinds of tempts to touch the right part of the screen to make a voice come to life.

The God of the Bible wants us to hear Him. He is introduced to us in Genesis 1:3 as a God who speaks ‘And God said …’. When God speaks things happen. Big things happen, creation, resurrection, salvation, and small things happen, a word of comfort, a voice of reassurance, an encouragement to keep going into a new day.

Moses is one of the key characters in the early books of the Old Testament. In today’s reading he recalls to the people a conversation that God has had with him (and amazing thing in itself!) He tells the people that God wants to speak to them, and He wants them to hear Him. God promised to raise up ‘a prophet’ (vs 15) from among the people, someone who in a clear and understandable way could speak God’s word to His people.

Like so many Old Testament promises, this promise gets kept as the story rolls on in two ways. It gets kept as God raised up prophets (people like Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel), but as these come and go they ultimately point to that moment when God would send the prophet. John in his gospel describes Christmas as the moment when ‘the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.’ 

From the pages of the Bible God calls out ‘Can you hear me?’ In Jesus He is speaking. As we look forward to Christmas are we listening?

Prayer: Lord Jesus thank you that you came into this world to speak God’s Word to us. Help me today to listen to you. Amen.