20*

Friday 20 December

Hope in God

By David McClean

Psalm 43

I was once on a committee to revise the collects. One collect, which we heard on Remembrance Sunday, was unexpectedly controversial. As drafted, it spoke of Christ’s “most gentle rule”. Many felt that to be too soft: following the commands to love God and our neighbour was no easy option; it could be difficult and demanding. So the prayer we now use speaks of “his just and gentle rule”. It is enriched by combining two different emphases, of justice and mercy, in a single phrase.

There are two emphases in Advent. It is a time of hopeful, joyful looking forward to the birth of Jesus and his second coming in glory. But there is also a note of penitence and judgment. He comes to “judge the quick and the dead”. To face judgment is, in the psalmist’s word, disquieting. As we look at the world, the church and ourselves, there is much to cause us that disquiet. I find that Advent is enriched by having both emphases in mind. All that is wrong in the world, the church and ourselves makes it all the more wonderful that Christ comes to us, yes with judgment but with love and mercy too.

God is indeed the God of my joy and gladness. In times of heaviness and disquiet, which we all share, I know I can trust in him, his light and his truth; he is the help of my countenance and my God.

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Psalm 43

O send out your light and your truth, that they may lead me, and bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling,

That I may go to the altar of God, to the God of my joy and gladness; and on the lyre I will give thanks to you, O God my God.

Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul, and why are you so disquieted within me?

O put your trust in God; for I will yet give him thanks, who is the help of my countenance, and my God.