Advent at the Table: A Devotional for the Fourth Sunday in Advent
Village pastors Revs. Rodger Nishioka, Maggie Johnson Phillips, Zach Walker, and Anna Owens have written a devotional for each Sunday in Advent. Each devotional is meant to be read as you light the Advent candle on your wreath at home each week. We will publish each week’s devotional here, but you may also stop by the church and pick up a printed devotional booklet to take home with you. These can be used from year to year; start a new holiday tradition with your family!
If you prefer, you may download the PDF file here with all five weeks of devotionals.
Read
Love shall be our token,
Love shall be yours and love be mine,
Love to God and all men,
Love for plea and gift and sign.
from Christina Rossetti’s poem “Christmastide”
Reflect
We’ve arrived here to the winter solstice and shortest day of the year, and it seems apt that we would light our final candle of the Advent season on this day: the candle of love. You may be reading this at your kitchen table or in your living room. You may be surrounded by loved ones in person, in spirit, or maybe even online. You may be filled with hope and wonder or you may be overwhelmed and barely hanging on. In whatever place or season of life you light this candle, the same mystery that breathed love and life into our incarnate God envelops you and holds you close.
As Christina Rossetti writes, love is our token. Love is our plea and gift and sign. Love is the warmth in the bitter cold. Love is the light that brightens even the darkest night. We might even go so far as to say that love is the whole point of this whole endeavor we call Christ’s church, and the lives we live as Christ’s people. As your candles shine on this longest night, so too does God’s love shine for the world. Take a moment with all four candles lit to ponder and give thanks for God’s love in your life, and to remember the ultimate love that arrives as we light the center candle in just a few days.
Questions for Reflection:
- Consider or share a time when you’ve found yourself lifted up by the love of others. What was that experience like? Did it change you? If so, how?
- Love has been the subject of countless songs, poems, and stories through the ages. The Apostle Paul writes to the church in Corinth that the greatest of these (faith, hope, and love) is love. What is it about love that’s so compelling? Do you think that love has the power to change the world? What might embodied love look like in our world today?
Close with Prayer
God of love, we thank you for the gift of your light. Make us even more like you—even more loving, and ever more faithful. Be with us as we await love come down, our token and our sign. Amen.
Want more devotionals?
Subscribe to Advent daily video devotionals from our pastors, published each day during Advent. You can get them directly in your email inbox, or view them on our YouTube channel.
See all that’s happening at Village this Christmas, including Christmas Eve service times, at villagepres.org/christmas.