A much-anticipated yearly event happened this week for people across the globe, Spotify released its yearly “Wrapped” graphics. It’s an event where Spotify, after tracking your music listening habits for most of the year lets its users know who and what they listened to most. They provide fun titles to listening styles like “Van Life Permanent Wave Indie Rock” or “Pink. Pilates Princess Strut Pop”. In years passed they’ve told you what city your listening style was most like, or what “aura” your favorite music gave off. It’s a fun time to share and compare with friends and everyone what this past year was like. It provides a way to look back on your year and remember when you were really obsessed with one album, or when you needed a good cry, so you kept coming back to one playlist in particular. In the end the “Wrapped” is a good lens for looking back on the previous year in your life.
Coincidently enough our Advent theme this week is “Look Back”. In this week’s texts from Luke we have both John the Baptist and his Father Zechariah looking back on the promises God has made to God’s people. In Zechariah’s song he talks about the prophets of old and how through their voice God has promised salvation and mercy. He sings of how God has remembered the holy covenant. Years later John would speak of similar things looking back and quoting the prophet Isaiah and God’s promise to bring down mountains, smooth what is rough, and show all flesh his salvation. It is in this looking back and remembering what was that John, and his Father Zechariah can look forward with hope into what will be. In remembering the prophets and leaders who have spoken with and received the promise of God in the past they look for those same promises in their own day.
We all have our own faith lives we can look back on. Times when we can say we engaged with faith and God and lived into promises we make and receive from God. We can also look back and see times where we maybe stepped away or faltered. Where the chaos and pain of the world around us made us question whether we would ever see the promised salvation we hear about year in and year out. So my question this week is looking back, where have you seen or felt God’s promise in your life? Where has it all felt different? What changed those situations, and what from those moments can help you look into the future with hope?
Peace,
Corey
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