Another Advent devotional? An Advent devotional focusing, of all things, primarily on the Psalter? Yes.In an age in which 24/7, in a way never before technologically possible, despair, and its children, fear, hate, tyranny, and violence, and their best friend, indifference, seek our attention if not our allegiance, the alternative character of the Advent narrative has never been more needed. Pondering the Incarnation through the timeless voices populating the Psalter has never been more inspiring. In the pages that follow, Paul Galbreath, Professor Emeritus at Union Presbyterian Seminary, provides a clear and compelling invitation to readers to inhabit the laments and praises of the ancient voices of the Psalter in the liturgical context of Advent, voices that are echoed by the songs of a young, pregnant, unwed, peasant woman named Mary and a skeptical, elderly priest named Zechariah, chosen heralds bearing witness in the darkness to the new thing God is doing about the darkness. Galbreath invites his readers on a prayerful journey into the Psalms as a reliable guide on a unique path through the liturgical season of Advent. He takes us on a complex quest, the goal of which is that we be changed, possibly transformed. His intent is nothing less than to bring the Living Words of the Psalter into the Light of the Incarnate Word in and for the world in which we live, in order "to allow the Psalms to open our lives to the beauty and the suffering that surrounds us." He succeeds.
Another Advent devotional? An Advent devotional focusing, of all things, primarily on the Psalter? Yes.In an age in which 24/7, in a way never before technologically possible, despair, and its children, fear, hate, tyranny, and violence, and their best friend, indifference, seek our attention if not our allegiance, the alternative character of the Advent narrative has never been more needed. Pondering the Incarnation through the timeless voices populating the Psalter has never been more inspiring. In the pages that follow, Paul Galbreath, Professor Emeritus at Union Presbyterian Seminary, provides a clear and compelling invitation to readers to inhabit the laments and praises of the ancient voices of the Psalter in the liturgical context of Advent, voices that are echoed by the songs of a young, pregnant, unwed, peasant woman named Mary and a skeptical, elderly priest named Zechariah, chosen heralds bearing witness in the darkness to the new thing God is doing about the darkness. Galbreath invites his readers on a prayerful journey into the Psalms as a reliable guide on a unique path through the liturgical season of Advent. He takes us on a complex quest, the goal of which is that we be changed, possibly transformed. His intent is nothing less than to bring the Living Words of the Psalter into the Light of the Incarnate Word in and for the world in which we live, in order "to allow the Psalms to open our lives to the beauty and the suffering that surrounds us." He succeeds.
