Preface: 'The Twelve'

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“It’s come ‘round quick this year! Are you ready?” I seem to hear this kind of thing quite a lot in Advent. Once December starts, the countdown to the big day is on and the rush to get ready for Christmas is really upon us. Because we all know, that to really get the most out of any big day—be that Christmas, a wedding, or something else—we need to be prepared. We need to be ready.

This is what Advent is all about. Not only getting ready to celebrate Jesus’ birth at Christmas, but even more so, making sure we’re ready for Jesus’ future return. That’s why we’re focussing this year’s Advent Devotional on the twelve books we often call the Minor Prophets. While we tend to think of these writings as twelve short books, the earliest manuscripts suggest that they were written and received on one single scroll, which later tradition simply called ‘the Twelve’ or ‘Twelve Prophets’.

Their strange names, brevity, and confusing content probably explain the relative obscurity of the Twelve in today’s church. I remember some years ago frantically trying to locate Obadiah in my pew Bible at a church service. I found it just in time to hear the words, “Here ends the reading”! In generations past, however, these writings were central to our faith and hugely influential upon the New Testament. Their striking imagery and colourful language disturb and delight, challenge and comfort, motivate and move.

When read together, the Twelve Prophets emphasise a big day that is coming ‘round quick. In the words of Zephaniah, ‘The great day of the LORD is near, near and hastening fast’ (1:14) hence the title of our devotional. The Twelve anticipates the great day(s) when the LORD will intervene and act. Whether this intervention means salvation or judgement for Israel and/or the nations is complicated. In fact one tension running throughout the Twelve is how the LORD can be both ‘a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger… forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,’ and yet also ‘by no means clearing the guilty, but visiting the iniquity… to the third and the fourth generation’ (Exod 34:6- 7; cf. Hos 1:6-8; 2:1; Joel 2:13-14; Jon 4:2; Mic 7:18-20; Nah 1:2-3; Mal 1:9)?

The advent of Jesus Christ resolves something of this tension. Advent is a season when we prepare to celebrate the day of God’s supreme intervention of justice and mercy in the incarnation of his Son and look forward with eager expectation to another great day when Christ returns in judgement and salvation. Christ’s return is ‘near and hastening fast.’ So, we need to make sure we’re ready. Advent is a time of preparation and self-examination to make sure we are. But how can we be ready? What does it take to be prepared for this big day?

The Twelve encourages us to be prepared for the great Day of the Lord by returning to the LORD in repentance. Again and again, the Twelve confronts God’s people with their sin and relays His urgent call, ‘Return to me, and I will return to you’ (Zec 1:3; Mal 3:7). Hearers are encouraged to place their hope in the day when God’s King is restored and the people ‘return and seek the LORD their God, and David their King’ (Hos 3:5). It is a call we hear afresh with the advent of Jesus the Messiah, the Son of David, ‘Repent [i.e. return] for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand’ (Matt 3:2; 4:17).

This Advent, as we prepare for the big day of Christ’s return in judgement and salvation by examining ourselves and returning to him, let’s attend to the message of the Twelve and,

May the bones of the Twelve Prophets

send forth new life from where they lie,

for they comforted the people of Jacob

and delivered them with confident hope.

Ecclesiasticus 49:10

The Revd Dr Andy Meeson, Bishop’s Chaplain.