Advent Devotional Dec 2
Week One:
Creating Shalom means Bringing Hope
Friday, December 2, 2022
“A Hope that Overcomes” (Ps. 72, Part Two) – Read Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19
Let him judge your people with righteousness / and your poor ones with justice. (v. 2, CEB)
I have had several opportunities over the years to lead and participate in civil rights pilgrimages through the South, where we visited historic sites from the civil rights movement. One such site is the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama.
In Selma, civil rights leaders had multiple confrontations with Sheriff Jim Clark as they tried registering to vote. After a group of white segregationists killed a peaceful Black demonstrator in a nearby town, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, John Lewis, and other leaders organized a protest march to decry the violence and support voting rights. The march would extend 54 miles from Selma to Montgomery. As they crossed the Pettus Bridge to embark on their journey, Alabama Troopers attacked the crowd with whips, billy clubs, and tear gas in a brutal scene that became known as “Bloody Sunday.”
President Lyndon B. Johnson responded by appearing on national television and pledging support for the marchers in Selma, uttering the mantra of the civil rights Movement, “We shall overcome.” 2,000 marchers crossed the Pettus Bridge and walked for three days non-stop to Montgomery, and Congress passed the Voting Rights Act.
I have stood in the place where Bloody Sunday happened. We prayed as a group and took Communion together on that hallowed ground at the foot of the Pettus Bridge. It was a powerful experience that reminded me of the Christlike sacrificial action those marchers took to overcome sin, death, and evil.
The hope they had in God’s justice is the same hope that we receive in the act of Communion: the transformation of this old world is possible! In this week of hope during Advent, we are reminded that hope without action means nothing. The Psalmist calls upon God to act with justice, to defend the poor, to deliver the needy, and to side with the oppressed. Christmas is the act of God putting skin on all of that hope in the person of Jesus.
May we, too, put hope into action this Advent-Christmas season.
Lord, you will see us through. / Lord, you will see us through. / Lord, you will see us through someday. / Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe: /
We shall overcome someday. Amen.
Rev. Adam Young
Senior Pastor, Sunny Lane United Methodist Church, Del City, OK
“A Hope that Overcomes” (Ps. 72, Part Two) – Read Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19
Let him judge your people with righteousness / and your poor ones with justice. (v. 2, CEB)
I have had several opportunities over the years to lead and participate in civil rights pilgrimages through the South, where we visited historic sites from the civil rights movement. One such site is the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama.
In Selma, civil rights leaders had multiple confrontations with Sheriff Jim Clark as they tried registering to vote. After a group of white segregationists killed a peaceful Black demonstrator in a nearby town, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, John Lewis, and other leaders organized a protest march to decry the violence and support voting rights. The march would extend 54 miles from Selma to Montgomery. As they crossed the Pettus Bridge to embark on their journey, Alabama Troopers attacked the crowd with whips, billy clubs, and tear gas in a brutal scene that became known as “Bloody Sunday.”
President Lyndon B. Johnson responded by appearing on national television and pledging support for the marchers in Selma, uttering the mantra of the civil rights Movement, “We shall overcome.” 2,000 marchers crossed the Pettus Bridge and walked for three days non-stop to Montgomery, and Congress passed the Voting Rights Act.
I have stood in the place where Bloody Sunday happened. We prayed as a group and took Communion together on that hallowed ground at the foot of the Pettus Bridge. It was a powerful experience that reminded me of the Christlike sacrificial action those marchers took to overcome sin, death, and evil.
The hope they had in God’s justice is the same hope that we receive in the act of Communion: the transformation of this old world is possible! In this week of hope during Advent, we are reminded that hope without action means nothing. The Psalmist calls upon God to act with justice, to defend the poor, to deliver the needy, and to side with the oppressed. Christmas is the act of God putting skin on all of that hope in the person of Jesus.
May we, too, put hope into action this Advent-Christmas season.
Lord, you will see us through. / Lord, you will see us through. / Lord, you will see us through someday. / Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe: /
We shall overcome someday. Amen.
Rev. Adam Young
Senior Pastor, Sunny Lane United Methodist Church, Del City, OK
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