Advent Reflections Day 19: Raising Our Voice of Cries for God’s Mercy, while Christ, God’s Response with His Mercy, Continues to Descends towards Us

 Psalm 130:1-8

Remember, in his prophecy on the coming of Christ, Zechariah sees the arrival of Christ as the daybreak from the heaven above (Luke 1:78). And, in anticipating the coming of Christ, Psalmist sung his hope for Christ in “Song of Ascent”.

Out of the depths I call to you, Lord; Lord, hear my cry! May your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy (Psalm 130:1-2).

Out of the depth of our contrite hearts, we look up to God in heaven, for His mercy, hoping that our cries for His mercy be heard. Our of the darkness brought by our sins, we ask God for the light of salvation.

If you, Lord, keep account of sins, Lord, who can stand? But with you is forgiveness and so you are revered (Psalm 130:3-4).

We trust that our God is God for forgiveness (Psalm 86:5), not of vengeance. We know that our God is God of mercy (Deuteronomy 4:31; Psalm 103:8) and His love endures forever (Psalm 136). These two verses reflect our trust of God as the one who can blot out our sins (Isaiah 43:25) to give us a fresh start. And, our hope for this new start with sinless state is where our hope for Christ’s coming is hinged upon.

So, now with our trust and hope in God’s mercy and forgiveness, we discipline ourselves to remain vigilant as a night-watch for the arrival of Christ, the daybreak from the heaven above, as the below verses reflect:

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits and I hope for his word.

My soul looks for the Lord more than sentinels for daybreak. More than sentinels for daybreak, let Israel hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is mercy, with him is plenteous redemption, and he will redeem Israel from all its sins (Psalm 130:5-8).

There is an image of the new dawn signals the rising sun will wipe out the darkness of night, in juxtaposition to our hope of God’s mercy sending Christ to redeem us from the darkness of our sins, coming to us as the daybreak from heaven. So, we stay awaken and vigilant in our hope to witness the arrival of the new light of redemption.

Redemption of Israel here also means that the redemption of the world.

Christ to redeem makes his first theophany in Bethlehem and completes his salvific Paschal Mystery in Jerusalem through his death and resurrection in Jerusalem. Then, from Jerusalem to the rest of the world, Christ’s salvific and redemptive light radiates all the way to the ends of the earth, while people of the world will see this great light and start walking his way toward the new Jerusalem, the Church.

Christ, who has been on his way, descending from heaven above, now much nearer to us, let us once again raise our cries for God’s mercy along with this Son of Ascents, while we heighten our vigilant hope for the nearness of the arrival of Christ as the new daybreak.