[BLOG] God’s Boundless, Barrier-Breaking Vision (An Advent Daily Devotional Series)

Week 1

November 30

Isaiah 2:1-5 | Wider Than We Imagine

The scope of Isaiah's vision startles us. The prophet sees "all nations" streaming toward God's mountain. It isn't just Israel, but people from every direction, speaking every language, worshiping every god. They come eagerly, saying, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord.”

This is no vision of a tribal deity claiming supremacy. This is more radical: God's teaching going forth to the world, God's word reaching "to the end of the earth." The nations don't come because they've been conquered; they come because they recognize in God's wisdom the path to genuine peace.

We domesticate this vision at our peril. How easily we wrap God in our national flags, baptize our political priorities, and assume the kingdom looks like our particular kind of Christianity. But Advent disrupts such small imaginings. The child born in Bethlehem comes not as Caesar's rival but as humanity's hope—offering a reign that makes weapons obsolete and turns our instruments of violence into tools for cultivation.

Isaiah's promise of nations learning war no more isn't naive optimism. It's the bold announcement that God's future breaks open every boundary we construct. The light we await in Advent shines for all people. The peace we long for isn't merely personal tranquility. It is the healing of the nations.

As we prepare for Christmas, we're invited into this larger story—one where God's mercy overflows every border we've drawn, where the good news really is for all people, where Christ comes to reconcile not just individuals to God but to gather a fractured world toward shalom.
How might God be calling you to see beyond familiar boundaries this Advent?

Prayer: Lord, as you open your heart to the whole world through the coming of Jesus, open our hearts to our neighbors of every tribe, religion, and nation. Teach us to speak good news beyond the boundaries of our own understanding and experience. 

Robert Hunt, Director of Global Theological Education


December 1

Psalm 124 | A Song of Ascents. Of David.

Psalm 124:1 reminded me of an occasion in my first undergraduate year as a member of the UF Gospel Choir. Sadly enough, the choir was attending the funeral of Alton in his Tampa hometown. He drowned in a lake close to the university in Gainesville, and the whole incident shook the young choir. We traveled together to the service, and because of our collective support and presence, Alton’s mother requested that the choir provide a selection following the eulogy. We sang the gospel song, “If It Had Not been for the Lord on My Side”.  Psalm 124:1b resonates with an invitation to the community of faith to join in this Song of Ascent, like the choir. For Songs of Ascent, “Scholars frequently observe that Psalms 120-134 deal often with matters of daily life -place of residence, routine activities, the importance of spouse and children, larger family and friends...national concerns in the context of festal celebrations where individuals and families from all over would have been brought together by loyalties that transcended the personal and familial.” (J. Clinton McCann, 1996, p. 1176) 

Alton’s death was a disruption in our young comprehension of daily life as college students, as well as a concern for family, natural and extended.  The choir’s loyalty was truly transcendent, reassuring and reaffirming though. And, celebrating his young life, singing that song in those moments together came moreover to be a festal gathering for both familial contingencies. We all transcended like this psalm’s early ‘then’ clauses together. For along life’s journey, of which death is a part, avengers seem to swallow, angers are kindled, floods, torrents and raging waters will be overwhelming, yet in climbing up from life’s abysses together, it can be realized that our Help is ever present, coming and with us always when we offer praise to God.  This is the potency that resounds through those latter three verses of Psalm 124.

If not already, soon we will read the pericopes, sing the carols and songs of this festive Advent season in which family and friends gather. Let us do so heartily and be reminded that our help is in the Lord, Creator of heaven and earth.

Hebrews 11:32-40

Hebrews 11 closes with a whirlwind list of unnamed heroes whose faith carried them through circumstances that were anything but triumphant. Some experienced victory and deliverance; others endured violence, displacement, injustice, and loss. The text does not romanticize their suffering, nor does it pretend that faith guarantees an easy path. Instead, it honors the truth that faith often means trusting God amid unresolved stories. 

These verses remind us that the Advent journey is not simply about waiting for light—it is about acknowledging the real shadows in which many people still live. The early believers described here held on to God’s promise even though they did not see its fullness in their lifetimes. They carried hope not as a reward for endurance but as a lifeline that enabled them to keep going. 

During Advent, we often speak of hope in warm, glowing terms. But Hebrews turns our attention to a gritty, determined hope—a hope that persists despite disappointment, a hope that keeps choosing trust when outcomes remain uncertain. This kind of hope is not naïveté; it is courage. It is the belief that God’s story is not finished, and that the God who has acted in the past will act again. 

The passage concludes with a profound truth: God’s promise was not complete without us. We, too, are part of the unfolding wholeness God is creating. The saints who kept faith across centuries were not abandoned to incomplete stories; rather, their stories knit together with ours as God continues the work of redemption. 

Advent invites us to join that long line of faithful witnesses—to hold on to hope even when circumstances contradict it, to trust that God is bringing all things toward restoration, and to remember that the promise we await is not just personal but communal. We wait together, held by a God who honors every story, especially the unfinished ones. 

Prayer: God of all who wait in hope, strengthen us when the world feels heavy and our faith feels thin. Teach us to trust your unfolding promise, even when we cannot yet see its completion. Knit our stories into the great tapestry of your redemption, and make us living witnesses of your coming light. Amen. 

Geoffrey Moore, Curator of Community Worship

Advent begins the liturgical year with a focus on the End of time. In Advent, we await the coming of Christ, but the first week of Advent focuses not on the birth of Christ but on the return of Christ, the second coming at the end of time. 

Today’s reading comes from the “eschatological discourse” in the Gospel of Matthew (the Greek root of eschatology means “end”). Matthew portrays Jesus as answering the disciples’ question, “When will this [the destruction of the temple] be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” (24:3). What he reveals, however, is not a timeline for the End times. Indeed, Jesus spends a great deal of time on what should not be considered markers of the End (24:5–28). The only reliable signs of the Son of the Human’s return will be cosmic in nature: the sun, moon, and stars will quit shining (24:29). If you look out your window and see the sun, it’s not today. 

In our passage, Jesus twists expectations even more by comparing what will happen in the End to the time of Noah’s ark: the flood took away the sinful and left behind the righteous. We often hear about those left behind as the ones not being saved, but not so according to Matthew. Being left behind is being saved. 

Matthew then has Jesus tell a series of parables to describe why we are left behind (24:45–25:46). We are to be like the faithful and wise servant who takes care of the other servants while the master is away. We are to be like the five bridesmaids who brought enough oil to keep their lamps lit while awaiting the groom. We are to be like the servants who multiplied the talents the master gave them charge over while he was away. We are to be like sheep who feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, and visit the imprisoned, and not like the goats. 

To be a Christian for Matthew is to embrace an Advent way of life. We await the return of Christ by taking responsibility for our faithfulness and for others’ needs. 

O Christ, who is always coming to us, grant that we may await your coming not by staring out windows and wondering when, but by serving you and others in the here and now. Amen.