Advent Devotional

Luke 18: 15-17

In Luke’s passage, we can glean that we must all have the heart, faith, expectancy, and unconditional love of a child. We want to see through a child’s undiscriminating eyes, hear through trusting ears, and commit to God and God’s justice with the passion of a child’s hug. The world would be a much better place, if we could achieve just a fraction of that wish. We can also read Luke’s words as a call to us to be servants to our neighbors – to put others ahead of us. In Jesus’ day, a child was at the bottom of the societal hierarchy. For Jesus to say that the way to God is through a child is to say that “to be first, one must be last of all”. As we approach the Christmas season, let us open ourselves to God with a huge hug, and let us remember that the homeless person on the street, the family on welfare, and the starving child in a far-away land are the first in God’s heaven.

PRAYER: God, thank you for all your children in the world. Help us to be children, looking to you and your words for guidance, ready to embrace the world with a big, ole hug. Help us put others’ needs before ours, as Jesus did, over and over, again. Amen.

Jill Jacques