My hometown has some skeletons in its closet.
Our histories are immutable. We can pretend they didn’t happen or that they happened differently than they did. We can even take steps to hide our histories—but the reality of them cannot be changed. They are what they are. Do you know any humans who have a spotless history?
Everybody has something they wish would never come to light.
Each time I settle in to read the current issue of Paducah Life—the magazine of my old Kentucky home—I am drawn to those articles looking back at area history. It’s never an exercise for the weak of spirit. There are plenty of commendable moments in Paducah’s history. But there are plenty of the other, too.
Kentucky was a “border state” during the Civil War, which means the state elected to not choose a side in the conflict. That’s sounds commendable—to choose to not fight a war—but that’s not how it was viewed at the time. The Union and the Confederacy were each incensed that Kentucky refused to align with its side. Perhaps it would have been an acceptable situation had it ended there. The Union, however, believed (correctly) that losing Kentucky to the Confederacy would be a disaster from which it could not recover—and the Confederacy knew it.
Consequently, many a bloody battle was fought there.
One Paducah Life article illustrated just the kind of tension that existed during the Union occupancy. Union General Lew Wallace (later, the author of all-time bestseller Ben Hur) found himself at the center of a near brawl between Union and Confederate army officers. It started over the fact that a Paducah citizen had hung the Confederate Stars and Bars from his window—in the face, so to speak, of the Union army. When he refused to take it down, Union officers had it forcibly removed and tore it into pieces. They cast the pieces at the feet of some Confederate officers who were in Paducah under flag of truce.
I think you can imagine how that was received in what was already a powder keg.
I relate this story, not to open a discourse on any of the issues that prevailed in that day, nor about those that prevail in our own time. But rather to point out that everyone, every locale, every nation has history of which we are ashamed.
It was no different for the Children of Israel.
This week’s selections from Isaiah and Psalms recognize the infidelity that plagued the history of their relationship with God. They are only a small sample of the times and ways in which God’s people failed some rather simple relational requirements.
While it is appropriate to read and learn from those bad choices and behaviors, we must also see what else is in that prophecy and that psalm: hope. There is a real desire to be better people. They want a better relationship with God. While looking back at their true history, they are also looking forward to that time when God’s anger will abate, when God will find a way for them to reconcile, when God will rescue them from their own sins.
This is the pattern for followers of Jesus. We, too, must view our past and present clearly, honestly. And we must look forward with that same hope.
This is Advent.
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PHOTO - cover of “Paducah and the Civil War” (source of the Paducah Life story about General Lew Wallace and the flag incident):
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Join us Friday morning at DaySpring’s Lectionary Breakfast. As we enter the season of Advent, we look forward with hope for the return of Jesus. Our Friday breakfasts are just one way in which we do that corporately. We meet on Zoom** and at Our Breakfast Place. Gather with us at 8:00 for a time of fellowship, food, and God’s word.
Blessings,
Steve
**Contact me for the Zoom link
NOTE: Zoom allows you to mute the camera and the microphone if you don’t wish to be seen or heard.
SCRIPTURES FOR SUNDAY AND THE COMING WEEK
Find them here:
https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=48
Print them from here:
https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/pdf//Bx_FirstSundayofAdvent.pdf
Isaiah 64:1-9
Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19
1 Corinthians 1:3-9
Mark 13:24-37
First Sunday of Advent (December 3, 2023)
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