Advent Devotional, 2011

Every year Park Street Church (Boston, MA) publishes an advent devotional authored by some of its members, ministers, and missionaries. This year's theme is The Promised and Proclaimed--a study of the corpus of biblical witnesses who proclaimed the identity of Jesus by their words and actions before his coming and while he lived on the earth. The first third of the passages look at the prophetic witness as they speak of the promised coming one. The second section of passages focus on the witnesses involved in the birth narratives in the gospel of Luke. The final section continues in the gospel of Luke considering the other characters who proclaim the identity of Christ throughout his life. Christmas morning we arrive at John's theological summation of Jesus' identity in chapter one of his gospel. Through this study of the Promised and Proclaimed we hope to remind readers that Jesus truly is the promised Son of God, the Christ who has come to take away our sins and usher in the kingdom of God.