A Reflection for Friday of the First Week of Advent – Year A
Friday, December 5, 2025
Psalm 72:1–7, 18–19 | Isaiah 30:19–26 | Acts 13:16–25
We continue with Psalm 72 this week, praying for the king who defends the afflicted and crushes the oppressor. But today Isaiah gives us an image that invites us to think about how we learn and how we worship.
The Psalm holds its ground: the poor are poor because someone is crushing them. There is an oppressor. And the king we await takes the side of the victim. He comes gently, like rain falling on a mown field (Psalm 72:6), bringing life to ground that has been cut back.
Isaiah speaks to people who have eaten the bread of adversity and the water of affliction (Isaiah 30:20). The suffering is named. It has a taste. But then the prophet makes a promise: Your Teacher will not hide himself any more, but your eyes shall see your Teacher (Isaiah 30:20). God is the Teacher. And the Teacher is not distant, not hidden, but present. Visible. Among us.
And when we turn to the right or to the left, we hear a voice behind us: This is the way; walk in it (Isaiah 30:21). This is not a command shouted from far off. It is guidance from one who walks with us. The Teacher stays close.
This image of the Teacher invites us to think about learning as a form of worship. Psalm 1 speaks of the one who delights in the law of the Lord and meditates on it day and night (Psalm 1:2). That meditation is devotion. It is being with God. The one who does this is like a tree planted by streams of water (Psalm 1:3). Notice the water again: rain on mown grass, rain for the seed, streams that nourish the tree. To dwell with God’s word is to be rooted by the water that gives life.
Study and contemplation, then, are acts of intimacy. We learn someone’s ways by being with them. To learn God’s ways is to see God, to hear God, to walk with God. The reading and pondering of Scripture is itself a way of being in God’s presence. This is what the daily practice of lectionary reading offers: time with the Teacher, day after day, season after season, until we begin to recognize the voice that says, this is the way.
In Acts, Paul stands in the synagogue and tells the long story of God’s faithfulness. Egypt, wilderness, judges, kings, David. And from David’s line, God brings Jesus, as he promised (Acts 13:23). John the Baptist appears at the end of this long arc, pointing forward: One is coming after me (Acts 13:25). Generations learned and waited and passed the story on. And the Teacher finally came in flesh.Remember these words: your eyes shall see your Teacher. Let our reading and reflection be devotion. Let our study be worship. The Teacher is present. The Teacher speaks. And the way we learn to walk is the way of life.