In the New Testament, John identified Jesus as “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). Why is it that calling Jesus “the Lamb of God” can feel so normal?

At Advent, words and phrases like garland, virgin birth, Christmas trees, conceived by the Spirit, cinnamon rolls, and the Lamb of God all seem to fit seamlessly into the same paragraphs with ease. Some of these things really are not like the others, but don’t they feel that way at this time of year?

“The Lamb of God” has become just another one of Jesus’s names to me. It’s all too easy to say, “that’s just who He is!” without asking many questions, especially at Advent.

It’s tempting to think that reading about Jesus as our Passover Lamb matters more for our Easter reflections than our Advent ones. And in the chaos of December, it feels easier to push my theological reflections to the Lenten season when I have new-year energy. But this Advent, I’m going to take advantage of the perspective this season brings. We can look backward through the story, from end to beginning. And then we can marvel in belief that Jesus would still come, knowing all He would endure as the one and only Lamb of God.

Prophet, priest, and king. Those are some of the main roles we tend to think of Jesus coming to fulfill at Advent. It’s not hard to imagine someone wanting to come as king. I can even conceive of someone wanting to come as a prophet or a priest. But to imagine someone coming as a sacrificial lamb? Who chooses to come for that? Jesus.

And as we reflect on the passover event in Exodus, we’re reminded of where the language originated. But the lambs in the passover didn’t sign up for it. A birth and death not in their will or power. But Jesus, our Passover Lamb, wasn’t surprised by humanity’s need when He put on flesh and came to earth. This was the plan all along. Who comes for that? Jesus.

In the past, when I’ve thought about Jesus as the Lamb of God, I’ve been caught up in what it means for me. But this year, through the lens of Advent, I’m seeing instead what it shows me about the heart of Jesus.

“Like a lamb led to the slaughter,” He still came (Isaiah 53:7).

It’s the same reason I have been writing this for, let’s just say, far too long. I didn’t want to break my own rule, quickly wrapping up Hagar’s story with a neat and tidy bow embroidered with the words “but God saw her.” It just didn’t feel like enough to hold it all together. Is being seen by God actually enough to make up for all of the other parts of her story? Hagar’s life doesn’t look at all like what I would think someone who has been seen by God would. 

Would someone who’s been seen by God conceive and carry a son they would have no legal right to? Would someone who’s been seen by God be deliberately mistreated and sinned against? Would someone who’s been seen by God be sent back to their place of slavery? In Hagar’s story, the answers are a resounding “yes.” 

It was alone in the wilderness, amid these very circumstances, that Hagar had an encounter with God. And where I expected to find a list of despairing requests and justifiably bitter complaints, I instead found her caught up in something else entirely: God had seen Hagar, and she had seen Him. Calling Hagar “the woman seen by God” is not something we project onto her story; it’s a truth she named herself when she gave God a new name (El-Roi), identifying Him as the God who sees. 

But it wasn’t just that Hagar was told this by Abraham or one of the other Israelites. An angel of the Lord came to her directly in the wilderness, leaving her with just one question: “In this place, have I actually seen the one who sees me?” (Genesis 16:13). Hagar had seen God. 

While I can’t speak for Hagar, her words echo my own experience. When the Lord has shown up in my life in an undeniable way, it hasn’t been the answer to a prayer or the clear act of grace that has brought me the most comfort—it’s been knowing that God even heard the prayer in the first place. It means He heard me. He saw me. He remembered me. Those hard-to-describe moments have filled me with more awe, wonder, and meek astonishment than anything else I’ve ever experienced.

Being seen by God wasn’t intended to be the bow that adorned Hagar’s story with a happy ending or beautifully tied up all of the loose ends. Her story was full of tragedy, and it remained that way after both of her recorded encounters with God. Like Hagar, being seen by God hasn’t always resulted in the circumstances of my life being held together the way I want them to be. But it has resulted in me being held together. And I’ve learned, slowly but surely, that’s far better every single time. 

My extroverted friends have told me that when they walk into a room full of strangers they start buzzing with energy at the thought of all the new people they’re about to meet. But me? Not so much. My favorite part of any gathering is the delight of seeing an unexpected, yet familiar, face walk into the room. 

On the heels of prophecies about Babylon, Assyria, Philistia, Moab, Damascus, and Cush, turning the page to Egypt felt a little bit like that for me. If this was a real-life party, I’d be looking at Egypt asking, “Wait, what are you doing here?” “How do you know Judah?” 

I often have to remind myself that though these oracles were proclaimed against other nations, they were actually spoken for Judah. So why might Egypt’s future matter to them? Let’s start with a thematic refresher to pull us out of the weeds of prophetic poetry for a minute. The book of Isaiah details the prophesied judgment against Judah for their ongoing disobedience. This judgment would be expressed, in part, through other nations taking them captive and removing them from their land. And Egypt was a nearby nation that Judah would have been tempted to form an alliance with in hopes of maintaining their independence from one of their potential captors, Assyria. Isaiah 19 provides the framework for why the Lord would later condemn this alliance in Isaiah 20 and 30: the nation of Egypt could not be Judah’s hope. 

It’s hard to read Isaiah 19 without first being reminded of Egypt’s history with God’s people. In Exodus, God’s people were rescued from slavery in Egypt through miraculous events—works that displayed God’s power and superiority. Isaiah affirmed what God’s people had already experienced: the gods that Egypt put their hope in were “worthless” (Isaiah 19:1). Why turn to the nation that trusted in a worthless idol?  

But it wasn’t just their past that affirmed why Egypt couldn’t be Judah’s hope. Though we don’t know the exact timing of the prophesied events of chapters 19 and 20, we see that Egypt’s destruction was inevitable. The Lord ensured that “No head or tail, palm or reed, will be able to do anything for Egypt” (v.15). And it’s the Lord Himself who appears as the one who “will strike Egypt, striking and healing” (v.22).

God’s destruction of Egypt was a part of His sovereign plan to bring them in as His own people too. There was an unexpected end on the horizon, and it’s not just for the people of Judah. “The LORD of armies will bless them saying, ‘Egypt my people, Assyria my handiwork, and Israel my inheritance are blessed’” (v.25). 

Egypt would fall. And Egypt would rise. Egypt and Assyria were both headed toward the place that the people of Judah already found themselves in—sitting underneath the revealed rule and reign of God. Isaiah was calling Judah to trust in the God every other nation would eventually turn to and worship. 

And this prophecy is our hope too. Our hope, trust, and security can’t be found in any nation; our hope is in the One who already rules over them all.

Written by Hannah Little

The run started in Genesis 28, after he deceived his father and stole his brother’s birthright. With his sin on his heels and his brother’s murderous plots following closely behind, he set out—accompanied by the hope of God’s blessing bestowed upon him by his father, Isaac. And it was on this very run that he encountered a God he might not have known he needed, the One that he could only describe as the God of his Father. 

And just one generation later, we find his sons taking vengeance into their own hands following the brutal acts committed against their sister. After they made a deceitful, false promise, they took for themselves flocks, herds, donkeys, possessions, dependents, and wives—right alongside the lives of guilty and innocent men alike. And so the run begins again. 

But on the run in Genesis 35, I think Jacob knew the God He was running back to. He was no longer His Father’s God. He was the God who answered him in his distress and had been with him everywhere he had gone (Genesis 35:3). God met him on the run and the rerun. 

The Lord brought Jacob back to the place he first encountered God at Bethel. And it was here that God affirmed and enlarged the promises God gave to him there. But this encounter carried significance beyond Jacob’s own transformation; the entire family was now prepared to encounter the presence and promise of God. It’s here that the focus of God’s promise to Jacob shifted beyond the one man to the full, familial extent of the covenant. God promised that a “nation, indeed an assembly of nations, will come from you, and kings will descend from you” (v.11). The covenant wasn’t just for Jacob but all who would come after Him. 

For a people who had only taken from others, they encountered a God who graciously gives. 

Why continue the covenant through Jacob, a man who consistently sought his own needs over others and whose own sons followed suit? I wouldn’t consider Jacob or His descendants to necessarily be deserving people. Maybe you, like me, struggle to understand why God would continue to be gracious to people who act this way. Yet God was faithful to His promises when they were not. He chose to extend mercy to this family that ran, and He met them on the run.

This is the same God who extends mercy to us today, a people also always on the run. Under the new covenant established by Jesus, we no longer have to run. His Spirit remains with us, wherever we may go, wherever we may ru·​uh·​un. 

Needless to say, kingship is truly a foreign concept to me. Though it isn’t part of my vernacular, and certainly not my daily life, it was for the people whose stories we find in Scripture. From the poetry of the prophets to the narratives of the New Testament, the theme of kingships runs throughout the pages of Scripture. 

God’s people longed for a king, and the Lord did give them one. Several, in fact. For generations, Israel had what they thought they wanted. Yet their longing was never satisfied. Bad kings led to personal, and sometimes national, destruction. Good kings, though flawed humans too, provided them relief, success, and direction—for a moment. No matter how impactful their reign, they all ended up just like David—“both dead and buried” (Acts 2:29), to put it bluntly. And still, after each successful king who died and unfaithful kings who failed, the same generationally transcendent longing for an earthly ruler came. Their desire for a king, though misunderstood and misplaced, wasn’t entirely wrong. We were all created to live under a King.

Matthew 22 recounts the countless efforts of the Sadducees and Pharisees to disprove Jesus as Messiah by questioning Him about the law. Their efforts failed, time and time again. Then Jesus asked them a question instead. “What do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is he?” (Matthew 22:42). Jesus knew his audience. What they ultimately wanted in their Messiah was a king, so their natural answer was “David’s.” 

As Jesus, the prophesied and long-awaited King, stood before those who had spent their lifetime waiting and watching for Him, they failed to recognize Him. Surely this man couldn’t be both the son of David and the Lord of David—that would make Him their Messiah. And this guy wasn’t the king they had expected. 

Though many kings in the line of David lived lives and reigned in such a way as to point to Jesus’s coming, none of them possessed His identity that set Him apart. Jesus is our resurrected King who will “reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will have no end” (Luke 1:33).

Many of us probably haven’t spent our days looking and longing for a king—at least not in the ways we’re used to thinking about them. But aren’t we all, at the most pure and basic level, longing for someone to reign over our life who knows what’s best and knows no end? That’s the King we were made for. Let’s find peace in His reign today. 

Not too long ago I caught myself admitting, with sincerity in my words and sorrow in my tone, ”I just want to go back. And I don’t even care which season. I just really don’t want to be in this one.”  

A couple of days later, my small group was studying these same stories from today’s Scripture reading. I wanted to go back, just like the Israelites. Despite having evidence of the Lord all around me, present pain took over my view of the past. And as I sat in my kitchen and Israel sat in the wilderness, we both found ourselves talking about how much we craved where we once had been.

I haven’t quite figured out the perfect formula for how to talk about disappointment, fear, or sorrow. Trust me, I’ve tried. Maybe you, like me, hoped that after reading the different narratives in today’s reading that I would be able to answer some questions for you: Why do God’s responses seem different in each story? Weren’t they all complaining, even Moses? And why does the Exodus narrative feel so different from Numbers? 

And then I start trying to figure out the formula in my head. Surely one of these stories must be the right way to do it? Maybe if I can figure out how to complain more like Moses, then it’s okay for me to do it too? Or maybe if I complain like Israel did in Exodus instead of Numbers, I can make sure that the Lord will respond with provision instead of punishment. 

I’ll admit, today’s reading is equally convicting and confusing.

I appreciate the character of God in these passages—no matter how much I may think it, He’s not trying to make obeying His Word complicated, confusing, or tricky. And I actually don’t think that we’re supposed to try and figure out the perfect formula. So what’s the solution? I don’t fully know yet. Newness is often accompanied by some form of loss, even when it seems that the newness is straight from the Lord. So how do we talk about our grief when we know that, in part, it’s a result of the Lord choosing to move us into a new place?

I won’t speak for you. But for me, the Lord has brought me into a new phase of life, in more ways than one. And from my perspective, it feels emptier than some of the seasons before it. But maybe it really is better to be in a place that feels emptier if it means the Lord was the One who chose it. And while I don’t always talk about it well, in God’s kindness He used this story to convict me—a story I don’t think I’ll be able to forget now. And I pray that it continues to shape how I talk about the Lord and His work in my life.

I wish I could say that the truth of today’s Scripture reading is what first comes to mind when I consider Jesus’s sure, coming return. In part, I know these thoughts are a consequence of living in a sinful, broken world with an imperfect, not fully-redeemed mind. But Isaiah 65 gives me hope. One day, not only will the heavens and earth be made new, but what I remember and how I think will be made new as well. When Jesus comes back, I won’t be sitting in grief over unfulfilled, earthly moments. After all, “the past events will not be remembered or come to mind” (v.17). The Lord says that what He will do will be worth rejoicing in forever (v.18). These words aren’t wishful thinking. They describe our upcoming, eternal reality with renewed minds.

Even Paul, hundreds of years later, affirmed the heart of this prophecy from Isaiah. The point of remembering that Christ is coming again, according to Paul, is to live in hope, not grief (1Thessalonians 4:13). Our one sure hope is that we will be in God’s presence forever with all those who are in Christ (v.17). And that is enough to rejoice in for eternity. And yet, that’s not all we’ll get to experience. We’ll get to live and worship in the new heavens and the new earth—which we got a glimpse of in today’s reading. To think of the world redeemed like this feels hard to even fathom. What an experience that life will be—living in a world free from the presence and power of sin. Gosh, I want that. What an abundant, gracious God to assure us that we will live completely and freely in His presence, and every single experience in the new heavens and new earth—from every animal and acre of land to every human thought and experience—will be consumed in and reflect God’s perfect glory. 

When I fixate on my earthly longings, I’m placing my hope in uncertainties. But when I remember that Jesus is coming back and He’s going to make all things new, I find sure, firm certainty.  
Our People of Remembrance reading plan ends with the final verses in the canon of Scripture, calling Jesus to return. If that’s the final cry of God’s Word, may it be the final cry of my heart as well. “Amen! Come, Lord Jesus!” (Revelation 22:20).

In our reading over the past few days, the Chronicler brought us through creation to the return of the exiles from Babylonian captivity. We read the genealogies of those who will take center stage in the books of 1 and 2 Chronicles—the tribe of Judah and the Levitical priests. But today we are given the history of several other tribes. 

The nation of Israel, twelve tribes united under David, split into two during a civil war in 931 BC. The tribes in today’s reading comprise a portion of northern Israel—Issachar, Naphtali, Manasseh, Ephraim, and Asher. These were the tribes first exiled, taken into captivity in Assyria 148 years before the southern kingdom was defeated by Babylon. These northern tribes continually rejected the Lord as the God of their nation—in both word and practice.

But there’s one other tribe mentioned here who wasn’t a part of the northern kingdom—the tribe of Benjamin. Together, Benjamin and Judah, the tribe we read about on Day 2, comprised the southern kingdom. In this expanded history of the tribe of Benjamin, the Chronicler established Benjamin not only as a tribe with a physical claim to Israel’s history, but also a royal one. The first king of Israel, Saul, was from the tribe of Benjamin.

When the Chronicler told Israel’s history, he wrote about these tribes—the northern tribes who were the first to be exiled and a southern tribe where the first unfaithful king of Israel descended. 

From the beginning of creation, God preserved a people as His own possession despite rebellion and unfaithfulness. And here, beyond the exile, God was still working. These small, often overlooked tribes had not been erased. The Chronicler had not forgotten these sons of Israel, and neither had their Creator. The story was not over.

While physical exiles and returns may be far removed from our daily lives, the feeling of being overlooked, sidelined, unfaithful, or forgotten is not. The Chronicler maintained that these tribes of Israel had a place in the people’s history. During the season of Lent, we too remember and rejoice that God has invited us into His story.

Amid today’s passages about the Holy Spirit, we come to the book of Ephesians where we find similar financial language to help us understand the reality of the Spirit for followers of Christ. As I read this passage, I couldn’t help but to compare this down payment (which the NIV translation refers to as a “deposit”) with my own. 

In him you also were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit…
The Holy Spirit is the down payment of our inheritance, 
until the redemption of the possession… 
—Ephesians 1:13–14

Unlike the deposit I gave my landlord, our deposit—the Holy Spirit—is actively at work within us. The Spirit’s work in us is not a single moment we can only look back on, hoping it’s enough to carry us forward. Scripture reveals how this Third Person of the Trinity is always at work in those who follow Christ. The Spirit convicts (John 16:8), leads us to obey God’s life-giving Word (Ezekiel 36:27), and guides us “into all truth” (John 16:13), just to name a few. 

Even Jesus said it was better for us to have the Spirit walking alongside us (John 16:7). Jesus was active in this world to secure our forgiveness on the cross, and is active today interceding on our behalf before the Father. The Spirit is active in our very hearts today, reminding us that God is the One worthy of ruling in our hearts alone. The seal of the Spirit is our secure deposit, reminding us what is true of God and our identity in Him both now and forever. 

By the time you’ll be reading this, I’ll be all moved into my new apartment with two of my best friends—maybe we’ll be taking down our Christmas tree and decor, or maybe we’ll be soaking up all we can of Christmas before the new year. Maybe I will have gotten my security deposit back, or maybe not. And, we’ll have put a new security deposit down. Just like that, the cycle continues. I’m thankful for the chaos of moving and uncertain security deposits. They remind me of what is certain—the Spirit ruling in my heart. 

The collection of psalms in Book II express lament and distress about present circumstances and conditions while looking to the faithfulness of God.

Something about this season of life has made me hyper-aware of how unsatisfying and broken this world is. Maybe this is my version of a quarter-life crisis? Whatever the reason, I’m left to reconcile the fact that there are no do-overs on the way brokenness has drastically impacted my life. Some of the brokenness is mine. But some of it is not, and that’s harder for me to sit with, knowing there’s nothing I can do to undo it. Thankfully, I’m not alone in this frustration; I see it written all over today’s psalms.

These psalms mark the beginning of Book II. Like Book I, these psalms express distress about present circumstances while looking to the faithfulness of God. These psalms primarily use the name Elohim, which is translated as “God” in most English Bibles and demonstrates His unmatched power and majesty. It’s this very name the authors—familiar ones like David and less familiar ones like temple keepers and singers—call on amid their distress, the One they know to be stronger than any enemy or circumstance they face. 

Each psalm from today echoes the same cry: the desire for God’s presence and justice amid sorrowful, frustrating circumstances out of their control. In Psalm 42–43 we see it on an individual level, and in Psalm 44, a national level. We aren’t given the details of their circumstances, but we are given the details of the desire and cry of their heart.

In the first verse, we see a longing for God’s presence: “As a deer longs for flowing streams, so I long for you, God” (Psalm 42:1). It’s interesting to me that this is the first request. The psalmist’s priority in addressing God is not that God would right his circumstances but that God would give him His presence. Oh, that my prayer would be the same, longing for God more than I long for Him to right all that is wrong in my life. 

As much as I learn from and long to be like the psalmist, I relate to him too as I see his frustration quickly surface. 

Why, my soul, are you so dejected?
Why are you in such turmoil?
Put your hope in God…

Just like this psalmist, I’m experiencing this broken world with a mind not yet completely sanctified. Sometimes, no matter how hard I try, I just can’t convince my mind and heart to align with what I know is true. In a way, the psalmist appears comfortable with this tension, repeating it over and over again. The psalmist knows God’s presence is what’s best, the best place to desire and the best place to be in. So, why is he so sad and hopeless? Instead of trying to resolve the tension, he just starts talking to himself. The psalmist is calling himself to hope, even though his feelings haven’t quite caught up. 

The injustices around us may not be made right on this side of eternity. But, we can grieve and get to work amid the seemingly never-ending weight of brokenness, all while dwelling in the hope we experience in God’s presence.