Advent

Dec 1. A people in darkness see a great light, and it's located: Galilee. The child's four names are given before anyone knows his real one.

Dec 2. A shoot from a cut-down stump, Jesse's. The wolf with the lamb and a child leading them. This is what the promised king's world was meant to look like.

Dec 3. 'Comfort, comfort my people.' A voice in the wilderness preparing a road, which all four Gospels will apply to John. It ends with God carrying lambs.

Dec 4. The desert blossoms, the blind see, the lame leap. Jesus will quote this list back to John the Baptist when John asks if he's the one.

Dec 5. A frightened king refuses a sign and gets one anyway: a child called Immanuel, God with us. Then chapter 12, the song for 'that day'.

Dec 6. Beautiful feet bringing good news. Then the passage Jesus will read aloud in Nazareth as his own job description: good news to the humble, liberty to captives, a garland for ashes.

Dec 7. Bethlehem, 'small among the clans', is named as the ruler's town. 'He will be our peace.' Chapter 4 is swords into ploughshares, the peace he's for.

Dec 8. God promises David a throne 'forever', which by Jeremiah's time looks broken. Jeremiah says a righteous Branch will still grow from it. Gabriel will quote this promise to Mary.

Dec 9. The last book of the Old Testament: a messenger first, then the Lord suddenly at his temple, and Elijah before the day comes. Then four hundred years of silence.

Dec 10. The oldest promises: a woman's offspring who will crush the serpent, and all families blessed through Abraham. Paul says the time finally came, 'born to a woman'.

Dec 11. An old priest, a barren wife, an angel by the altar. Zacharias asks for proof and loses his voice for nine months. Elizabeth's line: God 'took away my reproach'.

Dec 12. Gabriel to Mary. She's 'greatly troubled', asks how, and gets 'nothing spoken by God is impossible'. Her answer is consent: 'let it be done to me according to your word'.

Dec 13. Two pregnant women and a baby who jumps. Mary's song is political: princes down, the lowly up, the hungry fed, the rich sent away empty. Not a lullaby.

Dec 14. Zacharias writes 'his name is John' and can speak again. His song ends with the dawn from on high visiting 'those who sit in darkness', which is where Isaiah 9 started.

Dec 15. John grown up, in the wilderness, with Isaiah 40 as his script. Crowds ask 'what must we do' and his answers are practical: share your coat, don't extort, be content with your wages.

Dec 16. Asked who he is, John says three times who he isn't. Then he sees Jesus coming and says 'the Lamb of God'. He admits 'I didn't know him' until the sign.

Dec 17. The list people skip. Look for the women: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, 'Uriah's wife'. Outsiders and scandals, kept in on purpose. The exile is in there too.

Dec 18. Joseph's side. He plans to end it quietly, which was the kind option, and an angel changes his mind in a dream. He names the boy, which is a father's job.

Dec 19. A week out, two psalms about waiting: more than watchmen for the morning, and 'I waited patiently'. Titus says grace 'has appeared' and we're still looking for an appearing.

Dec 20. What Christmas cost, in Paul's words: equality with God not grasped, emptied, a servant. Colossians: the one holding all things together is the one in the manger.

Dec 21. God spoke through prophets 'at many times and in various ways', which is what the first ten days were. Now a Son. Chapter 2: he shared flesh and blood to help, and he was tempted too.

Dec 22. A census, a long trip, a feeding trough because there was no room. Seven verses for the most famous birth in history, and no detail about how it felt.

Dec 23. The first people told are shepherds on a night shift. 'Don't be afraid' again. They go and check, tell everyone, and Mary keeps it all and thinks about it.

Dec 24. Simeon has waited his whole life and says he can die now. Then to Mary: 'a sword will pierce through your own soul'. Anna, widowed eighty-four years, tells everyone who was still waiting.

Dec 25. 'The Word became flesh and lived among us.' Then the wise men, who came last and from furthest away, find the child in a house and kneel. Everyone the prophets promised for has arrived.