Advent

Advent Meditation: Week Four

This four-part meditation series savors the season of Advent through the Gospel of Luke. Luke begins his account of the arrival of Jesus by first introducing us to a cast of characters who have been waiting on God’s promise for a very long time. This series explores the theme of waiting through the characters of Zechariah, Elizabeth, Mary, and Simeon and Anna. You can read their stories in the first two chapters of Luke.


Week Four: Simeon and Anna

Luke 1: 5-25, 57-80


In this final practice we see what it looks like to wait with attentiveness and expectation through the stories of Simeon and Anna.

Inhale: I wait

Exhale: You appear

Advent Meditation: Week Three

This four-part meditation series savors the season of Advent through the Gospel of Luke. Luke begins his account of the arrival of Jesus by first introducing us to a cast of characters who have been waiting on God’s promise for a very long time. This series explores the theme of waiting through the characters of Zechariah, Elizabeth, Mary, and Simeon and Anna. You can read their stories in the first two chapters of Luke.


Week Three: Mary

Luke 1: 5-25, 57-80


In this third practice we sit with Mary, a woman whose hoped-for future changes in an instant, and notice her response to God's promise to her.

Inhale: Your glory

Exhale: my good

Advent Meditation: Week Two

This four-part meditation series savors the season of Advent through the Gospel of Luke. Luke begins his account of the arrival of Jesus by first introducing us to a cast of characters who have been waiting on God’s promise for a very long time. This series explores the theme of waiting through the characters of Zechariah, Elizabeth, Mary, and Simeon and Anna. You can read their stories in the first two chapters of Luke.


Week Two: Elizabeth

Luke 1: 5-25, 57-80


In this second practice we sit with Elizabeth who, even after decades of disappointment, still harbors a seed of hope and shows a willingness to try again and believe.

Inhale: I have this hope

Exhale: as an anchor for my soul

Advent Meditation: Week One

This four-part meditation series savors the season of Advent through the Gospel of Luke. Luke begins his account of the arrival of Jesus by first introducing us to a cast of characters who have been waiting on God’s promise for a very long time. This series explores the theme of waiting through the characters of Zechariah, Elizabeth, Mary, and Simeon and Anna. You can read their stories in the first two chapters of Luke.


Week One: Zechariah

Luke 1: 5-25, 57-80


“He has seen us through eyes of grace.” Luke 1:68

Inhale: He sees me

Exhale: through eyes of grace

Christian Yoga for Advent: Pt. 1

strengthen your body + calm your mind + open your heart + connect with God

Flow Description

Press into the holiness of the season in this Christian Yoga for Advent video!

This 30 minute flow is well rounded, including dynamic stretching, balancing, and gentle heart-opening. It can modified to any fitness level with the use of a chair or wall for support.

In this first of three Advent Yoga videos, we dig deep into the long-awaited promise of the coming of Jesus and wrestle with our understanding of and faith in God who may be taking longer than we expected to answer our prayers.

The story of the birth of Jesus in Matthew begins with a discussion of Jesus’ genealogy, a reminder of how long it was between the promise of Jesus and the birth of the Jesus.

We’re reminded of…

Abraham, who waited 25 years after God promised him he’d be the father of many nations before Isaac was born.

the Israelites, who were enslaved in Egypt for 400 years before God sent Moses to rescue them – 16 generations.

Isaiah’s prophesy about the birth of the Messiah which was 740 years before Jesus’ birth…and 400 of those years, there is no recording of God speaking.

In his book, “The Hidden Meaning of Christmas,” Tim Keller writes, “It looked like God had forgotten them. No one was coming, it seemed. But then he came. You cannot judge God by your calendar. God may appear to be slow, but he never forgets his promises.” 

Do we live like we’re waiting for a promise we never expect to be filled?

After generations of slavery, years of barrenness, centuries of suffering and silence…God’s promise hung in the balance.

Do we still live like that today? Like that promise still hasn’t been fulfilled? Like we’re still waiting for God to show up in a big profound way we expect him to to relieve all our suffering and make us feel superior?

Scriptures

“Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Messiah.” – Matthew 1:16-17

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” – Proverbs 13:12

“Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!” – Luke 1:45

Questions

Do we live like we’re waiting for a promise we never expect to actually be fulfilled?

 

Christian Yoga for Advent: Pt. 2

strengthen your body + calm your mind + open your heart + connect with God

Flow Description

In this second of three Advent yoga practices, we explore the heart of Expectation…what’s our response when God answers our prayers, but not in the way we expect?

God putting on skin and bone and coming to earth as baby to save the world, was not exactly what the Israelites had in mind when God promised them a Savior.

The way God moved in the Old Testament is not the way he moves in the New Testament. God spoke through burning bushes, supernatural plagues descending on the Egyptians, parting the Red Sea, conquering opposing armies amidst impossible circumstances…God revealed his unrivaled power, strength, His supreme holiness, might, and victory.

In the 700+ years since Isaiah’s prophesy, life did not get any better for the Israelites. By the time Jesus was born, they were ruled by the Romans, their promised land inhabited by an alien people opposed to their God.

God fulfilled his promise in a shocking way. God was so holy to the Jewish people, that they would not even write His name, the closest Moses ever got to seeing God was seeing His back because the glory of his presence was so overwhelming.

And then God put on skin and bone and that same holy, awesome God, appears on earth, grown in a teenage girl’s womb, birthed into the feeding trough of some cattle. Vulnerable, helpless, human.

It’s almost as though God was saying,

What I’m doing here is so much bigger than conquering an opposing army, winning a victory on the battlefield. I’m coming to save the world – all the world! Jews AND Gentiles, slaves and free, men and women, prostitutes and priests, the hopeless and the hurting – for all eternity, so they don’t have to do it try and do it themselves.

And yet, we get hung up when it doesn’t look like we expected, when it doesn’t happen when we thought it would happen, when it requires more of us than we are willing to give.

Questions

What does Advent have to teach us about our expectations of God?

Have we missed what God is doing because it doesn’t look like what we thought OR it requires too much of us?

Christian Yoga for Advent: Pt. 3

strengthen your body + calm your mind + open your heart + connect with God

Flow Description

In this third and final Advent yoga practice, we soak in the truth of Emmanuel, God with us.

It’s easy to get caught up in all the noise and distraction of the Christmas season, but in this 25 minute we hit pause on all that, and just breath in the crazy loving miracle of God coming to earth.

This quote from Tim Keller sums it up well,

The biblical God…is infinitely holy, so our sin could not be shrugged off. It had to be dealt with. He is also infinitely loving. He knows we could never climb up to him, so he has come down to us. God had to come himself and do what we couldn’t do. He doesn’t send someone; he doesn’t send a committee report or a preacher to tell you how to save yourself. He comes himself to fetch us.”

 

Scriptures

The people who walk in darkness
   will see a great light.
For those who live in a land of deep darkness,
   a light will shine…

For you will break the yoke of their slavery
   and lift the heavy burden from their shoulders.
You will break the oppressor’s rod,
   just as you did when you destroyed the army of Midian…


For a child is born to us,
   a son is given to us.
The government will rest on his shoulders.
   And he will be called:
Wonderful Counselor,[d] Mighty God,
   Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
His government and its peace
   will never end.
He will rule with fairness and justice from the throne of his ancestor David
   for all eternity.
The passionate commitment of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies
   will make this happen!

-Isaiah 9:2-7