Advent Week 4: Anticipate

Advent

Hope

For us

God doesn’t know how to be absent

Abstain

Peace

To choose not to do or have something

Tto refrain deliberately and often with an effort of self-denial from an action or practice.

Advent used to be a time of fasting.

Makes room for something new.

Increases our sense of joy and celebration on Christmas. (it becomes special again)

Abide

Joy

bear patiently

to wait

to endure

to accept without objection

Anticipate

Love

to give advance thought, discussion, or treatment to

Prepare Him room.

Matthew 23:37 NLT

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones God’s messengers! How often I have wanted to gather your children together as a hen protects her chicks beneath her wings, but you wouldn’t let me.

Jesus is talking to all of the religious leaders.

You’re so concerned with how things look on the outside, but inside you are a mess! Do you think I can’t see the inside? You are like a well manicured rose bush on the outside, but that rose bush is growing in a graveyard of rotting flesh and bones of all your unfinished business and the people you’ve hurt along the way! Please, stop letting stuff and other people get in between us. You are all equals - you’re all students and I’m the teacher. You all are kids, and I am your parent. But some of you are trying to be the parents when you’re the kids!

He’s saying “Hey! I sent you all these people - these prophets that I was speaking through - and I guess they weren’t flashy and pretty enough for you, so you killed them.

Isn’t it fascinating that God used the very thing that separated them from His protection - their tendency to kill the messenger, to reject the prophets - to bring about redemption and the end of separation. He came as the prophet, the messenger, to be killed. How amazing that God can take the very thing that keeps us separated from Him and use it to restore our connection to Him!

Conclusion

2 Peter 3:13-15

13 But we are looking forward to the new heavens and new earth he has promised, a world filled with God’s righteousness.

14 And so, dear friends, while you are waiting for these things to happen, make every effort to be found living peaceful lives that are pure and blameless in his sight.

15 And remember, our Lord’s patience gives people time to be saved.

When I was a child, my dad was an OTR truck driver. I thought that was so cool. Except for one thing - he was gone. A lot. But, once or twice a year, I’d get word that he was on his way into town. The time of his arrival was an estimate. We didn’t know exactly when he would arrive. But - as it got closer to the time of his arrival, our anticipation and excitement grew. So did our impatience. Everything started to sound like it must be a truck pulling up. My brother and I made countless trips to the window to look outside.

We didn’t have cell phones or GPS tracking. All we had was a call days before. And so we waited, eagerly anticipating his arrival. Then - almost always way later than we would have wanted, there he was! My brother and I would run outside, and stand next to my dad’s truck to catch the bags he would throw down to us to bring into the house for him. But the anticipation wasn’t over. Aside from my dad’s personal effects, we knew he wouldn’t come into town empty-handed. What he did he bring us, we’d wonder.

This morning, we’re going to do something a bit different. First, we’re going to read this litany together. And then, we’ll open things up for a discussion.

SABBATH REFLECTION

Creator God, we have celebrated the hope, peace, and joy that come from You. And now we

celebrate Love, which is from You, and is Your very nature.

God is Love.

You formed the universe out of the void, and breathed life into Your creatures, all because of

Your great love.

In You, we live and move and have our being. We exist because of Your love.

Humanity rejected You. But because of Your love, You made a way to restore us to relationship

with Yourself.

Love made a way. That love is Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ, Immanuel, God With Us. Born of a virgin girl in a stable, laid in a manger, Jesus

entered the world in humility and compassion.

Jesus lived, was crucified, died, and was resurrected from death, all for love. Love has

conquered death.

It is his example we live by: self-sacrificing love. And we know that “Love is patient, love is kind. It

does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking,

it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts,

always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”

May our hearts be illumined with the light of Love.

And may we share Your love wherever we go.

Amen.