Watts: Christmas

Saturday, December 25, 2021
    CHRISTMAS DAY
Meditation:
    Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. In a loud voice they sang: “Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!”
    Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing: “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!”
    —Revelation 5:11-13 (NIV)
Quotation:
Come let us join our cheerful songs,
    With angels round the throne;
Ten thousand thousand are their tongues,
    But all their joys are one.

Worthy the Lamb that died, they cry,
    To be exalted thus:
Worthy the Lamb, our lips reply,
    For he was slain for us.

Jesus is worthy to receive
    Honour and pow’r divine;
And blessings, more than we can give,
    Be, Lord, for ever thine.

Let all who dwell above the sky,
    And air, and earth, and seas,
Conspire to lift thy glories high,
    And speak thine endless praise.

The whole creation join in one,
    To bless the sacred name,
Of him who sits upon the throne,
    And to adore the Lamb.
    ... Isaac Watts (1674-1748), Hymns and Spiritual Songs [1707], in Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs, ed. Samuel Melanchthon Worcester, Boston: Crocker & Brewster, 1834, book I, hymn 62, p. 321 (see the book)
    See also Rev. 5:11-13; Job 38:4-7; Ps. 148:3; Luke 2:13-14
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have taken away our sin.

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Weil: to be always relevant

Friday, December 24, 2021
    Christmas Eve
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.
    —Matthew 24:35 (NIV)
Quotation:
    To be always relevant, you have to say things which are eternal.
    ... Simone Weil (1909-1943), Simone Weil: Utopian Pessimist, David McLellan, Macmillan, 1989, p. 2 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 24:34-35; Ps. 19:7; 30:12; Pr. 30:5; Isa. 40:8; 55:11; 1 Pet. 1:24-25
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, in our daily affairs, lift our eyes to eternity. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Drummond: Bright portals of the sky

Thursday, December 23, 2021
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.”
    —John 14:2-3 (NIV)
Quotation:
Bright portals of the sky,
Emboss’d with sparkling stars,
Doors of eternity,
With diamantine bars,
Your arras rich uphold,
Loose all your bolts and springs,
Ope wide your leaves of gold,
That in your roofs may come the King of Kings.

O well-spring of this All!
Thy Father’s image vive;
Word, that from nought did call
What is, doth reason, live;
The soul’s eternal food,
Earth’s joy, delight of heaven;
All truth, love, beauty, good:
To thee, to thee be praises ever given!

O glory of the heaven!
O sole delight of earth!
To thee all power be given,
God’s uncreated birth!
Of mankind lover true,
Indearer of his wrong,
Who doth the world renew,
Still be thou our salvation and our song!
    ... William Drummond (1585-1649), The Poems of William Drummond of Hawthornden, v. II, London: Lawrence and Bullen, 1894, p. 21-24 (see the book)
    See also John 14:2-3; Ps. 19:1; Luke 2:8-14; Heb. 11:16; Rev. 4:11
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, may I praise You forever!

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Bonhoeffer: a picture of Advent

Wednesday, December 22, 2021
Meditation:
    The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners...
    —Isaiah 61:1 (NIV)
Quotation:
    A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes, does various unessential things, and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent.
    ... Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), in a letter, November 21, 1943, A Testament to Freedom: the essential writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Geffrey B. Kelly, F. Burton Nelson, eds., HarperCollins, 1995, p. 490 (see the book)
    See also Isa. 61:1; Luke 4:18-19; John 8:31-36; Rom. 8:20-21; Gal. 5:1; Col. 3:11
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have released me from my prison. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Jones: the unrespectability of need

Tuesday, December 21, 2021
Meditation:
    While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and “sinners” were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him.
    —Mark 2:15 (NIV)
Quotation:
    In our Ashrams of East and West, places of spiritual retreat, we begin with what we call “The Morning of the Open Heart,” in which we tell our needs... We give four or five hours to this catharsis. The reaction of one member, who listened to it for the first time, was: “Good gracious, have we all the disrupted people in the country here?” My reply was: “No, you have a cross section of the church life honestly revealed.” In the ordinary church, it is suppressed by respectability, by a desire to appear better than we really are.
    ... E. Stanley Jones (1884-1973), Conversion, New York: Abingdon Press, 1959, p. 10-11 (see the book)
    See also Mark 2:15; John 15:1-8; 2 Cor. 4:1,2; 5:11,12; Tit. 1:15,16; Jas. 1:8,22-27;4:8; 1 John 1:10
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, help me to accept _____ and _____ in the fellowship. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Grou: fidelity in little things

Monday, December 20, 2021
Meditation:
    Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.
    —Philippians 2:3 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Little things come daily, hourly, within our reach, and they are not less calculated to set forward our growth in holiness, than are the greater occasions which occur but rarely;—in some ways we may turn them to more profit, inasmuch as they do not war against humility, or tend to feed self-conceit. Moreover, fidelity in trifles, and an earnest seeking to please God in little matters, is a test of real devotion and love... Let your aim be to please our dear Lord perfectly in little things, and to attain a spirit of childlike simplicity and dependence.
    ... Jean Nicolas Grou (1731-1803), The Hidden Life of the Soul, London: Rivingtons, 1870, p. 2-3 (see the book)
    See also Phil. 2:3; Zech. 4:10; Matt. 11:25; Luke 18:16-17; 2 Cor. 1:12
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant me the child-like heart. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Luther: clothed

Sunday, December 19, 2021
    Advent IV
Meditation:
    Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
    —Isaiah 53:4-6 (NIV)
Quotation:
    What gives peace to the conscience is, that by faith our sins are no more ours but Christ’s, on whom God hath laid them all; and that, on the other hand, all Christ’s righteousness is ours, to whom God hath given it. Christ lays his hand upon us, and we are healed; he casts his mantle on us, and we are clothed; he is the glorious Saviour, blessed for ever.
    ... Martin Luther (1483-1546), remarks on Thesis 37, Resolutiones et Responsiones, 1518, in History of the Great Reformation of the Sixteenth Century in Germany, Jean Henri Merle d’Aubigné, London: Walther, 1838, p. 380 (see the book)
    See also Isa. 53:4-6; Rom. 2:14-15; 3:21-22; Heb. 9:14
Quiet time reflection:
    The Savior is here! CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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