Dear Family at CCC,

     As we continue in our Advent series this Sunday, we will have the privilege of hearing from Ruth 3:14-18 and partaking of the Lord’s Table. Two themes that will emerge from our sermon text are anticipation and hope. Anticipation because the text leaves us with Ruth and Naomi expectantly waiting to see how Ruth’s bold action with respect to Boaz will turn out. Hope because we see that Naomi encourages Ruth in their waiting with hopeful confidence in the Lord’s goodness as revealed through Boaz’s integrity.

     Anticipation and hope are wonderfully appropriate themes for Christmas, and they are especially meaningful in connection with the Lord’s Table. Just as Christmas draws our attention to the fulfilled anticipation of the long-awaited Messiah in the incarnation of Jesus, so the Lord’s Table draws our attention to our current anticipation of Jesus’s return to bring us to the greater Marriage Supper of the Lamb. Just as Christmas draws our attention to the “thrill of hope,” the story that our Redeemer has come to take away the sin of the world, so the Lord’s Table draws our attention to the living hope that He continues to nourish within us by means of His own body and blood.

     As we prepare to partake of the Table this Sunday, let’s spend time considering the things we spend most of our time anticipating and putting our hope in. Let’s ask the Lord to use this means of grace to make us more hopeful in Jesus and His care for us. Let’s pray that the Spirit would nourish within us a peace that more eagerly anticipates how the Lord is at work to bring us closer to Him, and to help us to be less anxious about the things we are prone to worry about. May the Lord bless our participation in the Table by helping us to see and love Jesus better!

In Christ,
Robby