{"id":20343,"date":"2022-12-23T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-12-23T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mailchi.mp\/urc\/urc-daily-devotion-friday-23rd-december-2022"},"modified":"2022-12-23T06:00:00","modified_gmt":"2022-12-23T06:00:00","slug":"urc-daily-devotion-friday-23rd-december-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.trinitywimbledon.org\/index.php\/urc-daily-devotion-friday-23rd-december-2022\/","title":{"rendered":"URC Daily Devotion Friday 23rd December 2022"},"content":{"rendered":"

Friday 23rd December 2022<\/strong>
 <\/p>\n

 O Emmanuel (O With Us is God)<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

O Emmanuel, our king and our lawgiver,<\/span>
the hope of the nations and their Saviour:<\/span>
Come and save us, O Lord our God.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14)<\/span>
“We have our hope set on the living God, who is the Saviour of all people” (1 Tim 4:10)<\/span><\/p>\n

Reflection<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Since reading the late Jim Cotter\u2019s wonderful Advent book \u2018Expectant\u2019 (Cairns Publications, 2002), full of creative new and reworked \u2018O\u2019 Antiphons, I have been hooked to this form of liturgical response and long for Advent each year! It has become my go-to Advent daily reading.<\/span><\/p>\n

With beginnings like \u2018O come\u2026 thou wounded stag\u2019, \u2018thou silent song\u2019 and \u2018thou salmon, swift\u2019, his refreshing relationship to creation and life on this earth, has so clearly connected me to the reality we see expressed in today\u2019s antiphon: Emmanuel \u2013 God with us. I have found myself realising that I have always limited the \u2018us\u2019 to humanity. Jim\u2019s amazing words broadened my mind, so that \u2018us\u2019 now includes the whole of creation, including \u2018thou swallow small\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

I feel like I\u2019m ignoring the king and lawmaker bit, which you may have connected to, but, thanks to Jim, I can\u2019t hear \u2018O come, O come\u2026\u2019 without knowing deep in my heart that God comes to \u2018us\u2019: to all creation.<\/span><\/p>\n

I wonder if this insight touches you as it did me?<\/span><\/p>\n

Does it speak to us in a new way as we face a Climate Emergency?<\/span><\/p>\n

O Emmanuel, God with \u2018us\u2019 \u2013 come and save us.<\/span><\/p>\n

(And Happy Christmas for tomorrow!)<\/span><\/p>\n

Prayer<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Advent God,<\/span>
We give thanks for your constant presence<\/span>
and for the renewal, each year, of the assurance of your Son, Emmanuel.<\/span>
Open our minds to the breadth of this promise,<\/span>
that you are God with us;<\/span>
God in and through all,<\/span>
God renewing and recreating all.<\/span>
So be it.<\/span>
Amen<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Friday 23rd December 2022   O Emmanuel (O With Us is God) O Emmanuel, our king and our lawgiver,the hope of the nations and their Saviour:Come and save us, O Lord our God. “Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14)“We have our hope set … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “URC Daily Devotion Friday 23rd December 2022”<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitywimbledon.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitywimbledon.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitywimbledon.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitywimbledon.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitywimbledon.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitywimbledon.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20343\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitywimbledon.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitywimbledon.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitywimbledon.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}