Advent's Call to Love
This December, members of the Juniper Formation Leadership Team are sharing daily reflections through the Daily Ripple app and Substack. Join us as we explore the Advent themes of hope, peace, love, and joy. This week’s reflections are written by Theo Isoz.
Love in Community
Zephaniah 3:19-20 -
“I will deal with all your oppressors
at that time.
And I will save the lame
and gather the outcast,
and I will change their shame into praise
and renown in all the earth.
At that time I will bring you home,
at the time when I gather you.”
The word “home” always feels so tender for me at Advent. I am home because I have made it for myself. My community has built a home alongside me, we have made our own family, we keep each other loved and safe. While I celebrate our strength, ingenuity, and resilience, there is a part of me that always mourns for the loss of a home of origin. It is just true. We make love happen for ourselves, by God, but there is such tenderness there for love that is hard won.
The queer community is not alone in this, many (perhaps, if we’re honest, even most?) people have complex feelings during holidays. We want to be saved, to be gathered, to be brought home, to be unashamed.
This Advent comes at a hard and pivotal moment. Communities from historically marginalized communities are anxious and panicked about their future safety, homes, access to healthcare, and basic human rights. We do not know what is coming, but we sense an oncoming storm, and we hope that there are others who are willing to weather the storm with us.
Love has never been simple. Love is tenacious.
How can you contribute to a community that gathers, that brings people home, that loves people out of their shame? It is increasingly urgent that we spread a more true Gospel about the God that centers the oppressed. Advent is all about the joy of God revealing themself to us as love and correcting the world’s vision of God as vengeance. How are you part of the telling of the story of Advent?
The Presence of God
Philippians 4:4-5,7 - “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near…. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
Take a moment to meditate on the presence of God.
What is their presence like?
What are their attributes?
What sensations come in your body?
How do you feel?
What do you want to do?
In this passage, the response to God being near is joy (not just your everyday joy but “rejoicing,” great joy), tenderness, and peace.
Did your meditation align with experiences of rejoicing, tenderness, and peace? What about your meditation on God’s presence might need revision or reflection?
How might you be misrepresenting God in your own self? What might happen if God’s presence caused rejoicing, tenderness, and peace? How would you reflect that to others?
Receiving Love
Luke 3:10-11 - “And the crowds asked him, “What, then, should we do?” In reply he said to them, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none, and whoever has food must do likewise.”
In this time of world unrest and fear, I find myself so frequently stuck in overwhelm on the onslaught of injustice all happening at once. What cause(s) do I follow? Where do I put my energy, time, and work? How do we anticipate and prepare ourselves for what is coming next? Who do we trust? I find people increasingly turning inward, insulating ourselves for safety. To be clear, I am not critiquing people’s safety needs; however, I do believe that we need more community connection and active love for survival. What do we do? We see the person who needs a coat and recognize that we have two. We share our food when we have plenty.
But sharing when we have plenty also implies the opposite - accepting when others share with us.
A friend was recently pointing out the coldness of the self-sufficiency of white culture. We don’t want to “interfere” when we see people struggling; we don’t want to “take charity” when we ourselves are struggling; we often suffer in isolation and shame. I have learned most of my lessons in community care from women of color and the queer community.
We need to deconstruct the whiteness of independence in our church and social communities. I wonder how the practice of talking more openly about our needs and our fears might allow those in our lives to love us? What might it look like for you to have the humility to accept the love of help and support this Advent?
What are the tools that you have to pull down the mountains and raise the valleys and build the world you wish to see?
Relief
Isaiah 12:3 - “With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.”
This description here is visceral - abundant, cool water. Have you ever had a moment of drinking water that is just overwhelmingly good? Or that moment when the coffee just hits? I am appreciative that this is not just a spiritual analogy, but that there is an actual, physical moment of sweet goodness.
How do you relate to this metaphor today? Do you have an area where you have been struggling, lonely, exhausted? Where do you need relief like a refreshing drink of water? How does recognizing your need change your relationship to it? How might you stay attentive to moments of opportunity and people in your day that might be there to show you God’s love, rest, kindness, peace? Can you reach out to someone and ask them how they might need relief this week?
Affirmation
Zephaniah 3:17 -
“The Lord, your God, is in your midst; …
he will rejoice over you with gladness;
he will renew you in his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing
as on a day of festival.”
The other day, I was taking some alone & reflection space in a coffee shop when I watched a pair of pre-teens come out of a salon with their hair freshly coiffed. I watched them walk to the car with their fresh fades and the swagger of people who knew they were “The Sh*t.” I wondered in joy of the sweet assurance that a new haircut can bring and about those moments in our adult lives; it feels so few and far between that we feel seen and celebrated in all that we are.
While I think it actually sounds rather annoying to have someone exult over me with loud singing, I’d certainly take the figurative version of that. I love the vision of God rejoicing at us in our fullness.
Since watching those young people a few weeks ago, I have been focusing on moments to bring that kind of affirmation and deep love to the people in my life. I have had moments of great joy and connection while watching the people I care about blossom before me when I attempt to more deeply see and rejoice over them. This is heaven. This is the coming of God to earth.
How might you bring the love of Advent to your community by taking some moments to affirm the divine in the people around you?