Dear Family at Christ Community,

     On Sunday, we will be invited to partake of the Lord’s Table and have our faith nourished as part of our response to the proclamation of Micah 4. We will be confronted with the hope of restoration from the ashes of God’s sure and just judgment. This hope of restoration does not keep the people of God from suffering but, instead, calls them (and us) to faithful obedience despite suffering in exile under the tyrannical rule of pagan governance. God astonishingly redeems His people in the shadow of Babylon, whatever form that takes in our lives. Remember, Christ ALWAYS meets us first in our broken need and exile from God. He continues to meet us in our ongoing need for nourishment, healing, and reminder of God’s love for us. We celebrate this redeemed reality having our faith nourished by the elements though we continue to suffer the effects of life in a fallen world between the Now and the Not Yet. 

     Maybe some of you are struggling this Advent season with a hardened heart or anger at the way things are going or feeling like there is no real hope in this fallen world, which makes it hard to celebrate the Lord’s goodness in the Table. If this is you (and even if it’s not), please prayerfully consider the words of Dale Ralph Davis from A Study Commentary on Micah on Micah 4:10 as he calls us to the beauty and fruits of repentance in Christ in preparation for the Table:

"And what does one do when deliverance begins in what is apparently the wrong place? Welcome it and rejoice. This word isn’t only for people in Judah. Even among commentary readers there may be some of you who know that you have blatantly hardened your heart against God’s ways and the Spirit’s pleas, who have blocked your ears so you wouldn’t hear Christ’s commands; you rationalized your disobedience so you could go your own way. And God has allowed your rebellion to bear its bitter fruit. He has—in a sense—brought you to Babylon. And now what? It may be that, like the prodigal in the far country, he has brought you to the end of yourself. Well, you can repent in ‘Babylon’. You can say in this bleak and homeless and strange and unwelcome place, ‘I am going to submit to Yahweh’s rule; I am going to ask him to make me his servant again, and I will live under the sway of Jesus whether he changes my circumstances or not.’ God has a knack for beginning deliverance in Babylon."

May the Holy Spirit humbly tender each of our hearts to the redemptive promises of God represented in communion that we may be healed and filled with the joy of Christ’s finished work on our behalf!

In Christ,
Cameron