LC† Love, the Guest

A devotional for Advent and Christmas from Lutherans Connect.

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Lutherans Connect: Lutherans Connect is an online portal for devotional projects with an ecumenical reach. Begun in association with Lutheran Campus Ministry Toronto in 2008, now, in 2024, Lutherans Connect has evolved over the years into its own dedicated ministry which publishes devotionals in relationship to the seasons of the church and the times in between. Recently, the Lutherans Connect devotional ministry has come under the auspices of the Centre for Spirituality and Media at Martin Luther University College in Waterloo, Ontario. The Lutherans Connect online devotional projects are supported by Martin Luther University College and the Eastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, through its Mission Committee partnerships.

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About this Devotional

Advent is a time when we begin to mark the closing of the year and reckon all of its challenges and blessings. Advent also represents the turn of the church calendar year, and the beginning of new hope. Throughout the Advent and Christmas seasons, we take pleasure in bringing people together, to offer and share in abundant hospitality. This Advent, we may be feeling somewhat more able to offer that hospitality than we could last year, but we are also mindful of the many who are still not able to gather fully, or whose resources have been depleted. How can we both celebrate hospitality and also encourage a greater hospitality in each other?

This year’s Advent devotional is inspired by a minor player in the nativity story — the inn. There was no room at the inn for Mary, Joseph and the soon-to-be born Jesus. The Greek word used for ‘inn’ in Luke’s gospel is found only one other time in the New Testament: when Jesus instructs the disciples to go into a Jerusalem inn to make preparations for the Passover. He tells them to say that the Teacher is inquiring, making clear his knowledge that they will be accommodated. The room in this inn will become the site of the Last Supper and be later known to us as the “upper room”. Thus, the word used in a story of rejection becomes the word that leads to a transformed understanding of who Jesus is and will be. How can our own hospitality offer comfort and even a bit of transformation to those we love?

Join us from November 28th until January 6th, as we celebrate the moments of hospitality in Scripture, small and large, from across the many books of the bible and within a complex variety of contexts. (Note: the first devotion is this Sunday, but after that we will not be offering devotions on Sundays.) We will also explore some contemporary stories of hospitality and generosity that take place year round. Let us come together to make room in the inn of our hearts for Jesus.

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