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Reading plan · 12 days

An Advent Reading Plan

For anyone, or any family, who wants to keep Advent unhurried and centred on Christ rather than the rush.

Advent is a season of waiting and getting ready, and it is easily lost in the noise of December. This plan walks the old road to the manger in twelve short readings: the prophets’ long-held promise, the announcement to Mary and Joseph, the birth in Bethlehem, the shepherds and the wise men, and the reason behind all of it. Read one a day, or every other day through Advent, on your own or around the table.

  1. Day 1: Isaiah 9:6

    Seven hundred years before the manger, Isaiah names the child: Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Prince of Peace. Advent begins in longing, with a promise spoken into the dark.

  2. Day 2: Isaiah 7:14

    The sign is a name: Immanuel, God with us. Not God watching from a safe distance, but God come near. Let that be the keynote of the whole season.

  3. Day 3: Micah 5:2

    The ruler of Israel will come from Bethlehem, a small and unremarkable town. God so often begins in the places nobody is watching.

  4. Day 4: Isaiah 40:1-5

    Comfort, comfort my people. A voice cries: prepare the way. Advent is a season of making room for the One who is coming.

  5. Day 5: Luke 1:26-38

    The announcement to Mary. Notice her honest question, and then her yes: let it be to me according to your word. Faith often looks like a trembling yes.

  6. Day 6: Luke 1:46-55

    Mary’s song, the Magnificat. A young woman sings of a God who lifts the lowly and fills the hungry. The good news has always been for the overlooked.

  7. Day 7: Matthew 1:18-21

    Joseph’s part, quieter and harder. The angel gives the name and its meaning: Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. That is why he comes.

  8. Day 8: Luke 2:1-7

    An emperor’s census, a long road, no room at the inn. The King of heaven is born in a borrowed corner and laid in a feeding trough. Read it slowly.

  9. Day 9: Luke 2:8-20

    The first to hear are shepherds on the night shift at the edge of town. Glory breaks over the ordinary, and they go to see for themselves.

  10. Day 10: Matthew 2:1-2

    Wise men follow a star from far away to worship a Jewish child. From the very start, this good news is for the whole world, not one nation only.

  11. Day 11: John 1:1-14

    John tells the same story from heaven’s side: the Word who made everything became flesh and lived among us. Wonder is the only fitting response.

  12. Day 12: John 3:16

    End at the reason for it all. God so loved the world that he gave his Son. Christmas is what that love looked like when it came to find us.

The wonder of Christmas is not that we reach up to God, but that he came down to us, as a child, to be God with us and to save us. However busy the season becomes, that is the news worth slowing down for. Happy Christmas.

Carry on from here