Psalm 126 • Habakkuk 3:2-6 • Philippians 3:12-16
Advent is a time of laughter and joy. We wait, filled with hope, for God to enter our world and restore us. Today’s psalm is powerful because it alludes to the return of the Exiles from Babylonian captivity. The fortunes restored are the people! God’s promises, as spoken through Jeremiah, were fulfilled and so the people sing and laugh that their new day has dawned. We know that God fulfilled his promise to bring us a new King, a Messiah. Therefore, our days of Advent are filled with the joy we know will be fully realized when we announce that “unto us a child is born”!
There is also the anticipated reversal, when mourning is transformed to joy and tears to laughter. Yes, the Lord has done great things for us. Yes, the Lord is doing great things for us. Yes, the Lord will do great things for us!
O Lord, thank you for our restoration. Thank you for laughter and joy. Fill us with joy for the great things you do. Amen.
Dr. Steve Bishop
Associate Professor of Old Testament
Seminary of the Southwest
Listen to Steve read his meditation and prayer:
Dr. Steven Bishop, associate professor of Old Testament, came to the Seminary of the Southwest in 2004 from the Boston area, where he earned three graduate degrees and taught at several universities. Formerly an ordained minister of the Church of Christ, he served churches in Texas and Massachusetts before beginning graduate studies in the early 1990s. Dr. Bishop’s academic interests include the poetry of the Hebrew Bible and literary translations of it into English, and the influence of Hellenistic thought on Hebrew wisdom literature. In addition to writing book reviews and presenting scholarly papers, Dr. Bishop assisted the well-known Old Testament scholar Bernhard Anderson in editing and revising two books: Out of the Depths: The Psalms Speak for Us Today and Contours of Old Testament Theology. Dr. Bishop worked again with Anderson as an editor and contributor for the fifth edition of Understanding the OldTestament, published in spring 2006. In 2015, Dr. Bishop was elected to the steering committee of the Anglican Association of Biblical Scholars.
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