Advent in the Evening
A Sunday Chapel Meditation from Psalm 134
It is the evening of the first Sunday in Advent. I apologize to our readers who have come to expect an audio devotional. Unforeseen hindrances interrupted my desire to record a Sunday chapel devotional. However, I would like to proclaim the gospel and the message as I find it in this wonderful evening Psalm before me.
Please, read with me the inerrant and infallible word of the living God:
PSALM 134
1 Behold now, praise the Lᴏʀᴅ,
all you servants of the Lᴏʀᴅ,
2 You that stand by night in the house of the Lᴏʀᴅ,
even in the courts of the house of our God.
3 Lift up your hands in the sanctuary
and sing praises unto the Lᴏʀᴅ.
4 The Lᴏʀᴅ who made heaven and earth
give you blessing out of Zion.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
It is indeed the evening of the First Sunday in Advent. And, so, in the deepening twilight of this holy day, even with a preacher slow to assume the steps of the pulpit—arriving at compline to give the sermon for matins—we can receive the blessing of Psalm 134. I see the Psalmist speaking words of blessing to the night worshippers. So, we, too, can surely receive this blessing for our lives on the evening of this Lord’s Day.
This advent of Jesus Christ, our savior, brings forth not just salvation but an abundance of good in every area of life. He ushers in a peace that transcends the mundane and permeates our very souls, especially as day gives way to night. In difficult days of apostasy, and unbelief, when people call evil good and good evil, we are prone to sorrow. Yet, Psalm 134 on Advent in the evening calls us to praise God in the shadows. What a sweet and spirit-warming cordial from this Psalm. What a blessed gift of the Holy Spirit for suffering saints in late hours.
A further thought: The act of retiring each evening is, in reality, a profound spiritual exercise, a rehearsal for eternity. This is no morose contemplation of the end but a joyous anticipation of what lies beyond. It is an act of sweet surrender to the Lord as we go to sleep. That, too, is the joy of Advent in the night. So, the Psalmist encourages us in our doxologies in the darkness. And all of this is so because the coming of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ, brought about a wondrous incarnational transformation, whereby Jesus lived the life that we could not live and died the death that should have been ours. By the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and in anticipation of his coming again, we may praise him at every hour of the day, and in every season of our lives. Such ideas always remind me of that premiere preacher of Incarnation, John Donne:
He brought light out of darknesse, not out of a lesser light; he can bring thy Summer out of Winter, though thou have no Spring; though in the wayes of fortune, or understanding, or conscience, though have been benighted till now, wintred and frozen, clouded and eclypsed, damped and benummed, smothered and stupefied till now, now God comes to thee, not as in the dawning of the day, not as in the bud of the spring, but as the Sun at noon to illustrate all shadowes, as the sheaves in harvest, to fill all penuries, all occasions invite his mercies, and all times are his seasons. — John Donne (1572-1631), Poet and divine, From a sermon preached at Saint Pauls, upon Christmas Day, in the Evening, 1624.
The coda to Donne’s evening sermon grips my soul with wonder each time I read it: “All occasions invite his mercies, and all times are his seasons.” There is a life of meditation in Christian theology possible in that one line.
When my wife and I toured Paris some years ago, we visited a church where nuns have committed to ceaseless prayer since the 1800s. We joined them for a few moments, a fitting if not embarrassing statement of my meager dedication in contrast to their own. But I lift the scene of unceasing prayers before you for this: Their unending vigil mirrors the Psalmist’s encouragement of perpetual worship in the temple, a symbol of our calling to live lives of uninterrupted worship. Their prayers, echoing through the ages, serve as a model for all of us: that our praise in every hour of life is a choral refrain to the stanzas of His first and second coming.
In this Advent season, on this Advent night, our weariness doesn’t diminish our praise but slows us down for more careful prayer and meditation. The coming of Christ assures us that, despite the chaos of the world, God’s sovereignty remains unchallenged. And with the promise of Christ’s return, our hearts swell with hope. All this as we rub our eyes like sleepy children during the third point of the pastor’s sermon.
And so these are thoughts on the Psalm, on the Sabbath, in this season, and as we prepare to sleep. This is the message I pray you will receive: God is on the throne. Christ has come. Darkness cannot hinder hands lifted or songs sung. And Jesus Christ is coming again. This is our blessing, our call to worship even as we prepare to sleep. This is Advent in the evening.
“The Lᴏʀᴅ who made heaven and earth give you blessing out of Zion.”
And You have O Lord Jesus, You have.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Benediction
Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen (Hebrews 13:20-21).