Are We Really Ready?

Recap Hope

Last week we had our first Sunday of Advent. The first Sunday of Advent is about hope. The message of hope rings throughout the Bible. If we take a look at it from a broad perspective, we can see the Bible as a story of God and His redemption of a people that just could not get right. When things were going great, the people could not get right. When things were going bad, the people could not get right. God gives messages of hope throughout the book that He gave us.

Hope keeps us secure in Him during times of tumult. Hope is an anchor that doesn’t drag us off course when chaos reigns and nothing seems to be going right. Hope is also an anchor that can help us get through tough times or when we feel like we are not making progress. Hope is a superpower. As believers, our hope is in God Almighty. He is the One that sent His Son so that we could be forgiven. There is great hope in that. There is hope in knowing that the God of the universe, the One that made all of creation is so concerned about each and every one of us that He chose to make a way to restore fellowship with Him. The Bible shows us over and over again that no matter how hard we try, we will always fall short. We see that happen in the history of the Israelites and we see that happen today as well.

This season, we celebrate the hope that we have in Jesus. The hope that we will one day be restored to paradise and be in fellowship with God. We know that it will happen one day.

The second Sunday of Advent is known for preparation. It also has to do with Bethlehem and peace. Like I said last week, Jesus is the only person in the history of humanity to meet all of the Messianic prophecies. Of course He is the only one, because He is the One true Messiah. The prophecy that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem is spelled out in Micah 5:2 “Bethlehem Ephrathah, you are small among the clans of Judah; one will come from you to be ruler over Israel for me. His origin is from antiquity, from ancient times.” Sure enough, even though Jesus is known as a Nazarene because that is where He spent most of His life, He was born in Bethlehem just as Micah said. The reason for that was the census that the emperor had implemented. Joseph and Mary had to travel to Bethlehem to meet the emperor’s demands. We will get into that more on Christmas Eve. Sadly, the one time that I was able to go to Jerusalem, Bethlehem was in enemy territory and we were forbidden from visiting.

I do think it is very interesting that God chose Bethlehem to be the birthplace of the Messiah. It was the smallest clan in the tribe of Judah. We see God do that a lot through the Bible, though. He takes the people that we would discount and makes them the leaders and gives them great victory. When Israel decided they wanted a king, Saul was the one selected. He looked like he was a born leader. He was also taller than anyone else. From the worldly perspective, he would have been the logical choice. Yet he loses the throne because he does breaks God’s commands. Meanwhile, David is just a kid, but he has enough faith that he kills Goliath. God delivers from places that we don’t expect. That is a constant theme we see throughout the Bible. All that to say, we should not discount someone and their abilities. Nor should we discount ourselves. When God gives us a task, we can rest in the fact that God will equip us to meet that task. When it comes to doing kingdom work, the only one that limits us is ourselves.

Advent is a time of preparation. The prophet Isaiah gives the command to be ready. God speaks words of comfort to His people. Isaiah 40

Isaiah 40 CSB

“Comfort, comfort my people,” says your God. “Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and announce to her that her time of hard service is over, her iniquity has been pardoned, and she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.” A voice of one crying out: Prepare the way of the Lord in the wilderness; make a straight highway for our God in the desert. Every valley will be lifted up, and every mountain and hill will be leveled; the uneven ground will become smooth and the rough places, a plain. And the glory of the Lord will appear, and all humanity together will see it, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. A voice was saying, “Cry out!” Another said, “What should I cry out?” “All humanity is grass, and all its goodness is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flowers fade when the breath of the Lord blows on them; indeed, the people are grass. The grass withers, the flowers fade, but the word of our God remains forever.” Zion, herald of good news, go up on a high mountain. Jerusalem, herald of good news, raise your voice loudly. Raise it, do not be afraid! Say to the cities of Judah, “Here is your God!” See, the Lord God comes with strength, and his power establishes his rule. His wages are with him, and his reward accompanies him. He protects his flock like a shepherd; he gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them in the fold of his garment. He gently leads those that are nursing. Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand or marked off the heavens with the span of his hand? Who has gathered the dust of the earth in a measure or weighed the mountains on a balance and the hills on the scales? Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord, or who gave him counsel? Who did he consult? Who gave him understanding and taught him the paths of justice? Who taught him knowledge and showed him the way of understanding? Look, the nations are like a drop in a bucket; they are considered as a speck of dust on the scales; he lifts up the islands like fine dust. Lebanon’s cedars are not enough for fuel, or its animals enough for a burnt offering. All the nations are as nothing before him; they are considered by him as empty nothingness. With whom will you compare God? What likeness will you set up for comparison with him? An idol?—something that a smelter casts and a metalworker plates with gold and makes silver chains for? A poor person contributes wood for a pedestal that will not rot. He looks for a skilled craftsman to set up an idol that will not fall over. Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been declared to you from the beginning? Have you not considered the foundations of the earth? God is enthroned above the circle of the earth; its inhabitants are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like thin cloth and spreads them out like a tent to live in. He reduces princes to nothing and makes judges of the earth like a wasteland. They are barely planted, barely sown, their stem hardly takes root in the ground when he blows on them and they wither, and a whirlwind carries them away like stubble. “To whom will you compare me, or who is my equal?” asks the Holy One. Look up and see! Who created these? He brings out the stars by number; he calls all of them by name. Because of his great power and strength, not one of them is missing. Jacob, why do you say, and Israel, why do you assert, “My way is hidden from the Lord, and my claim is ignored by my God”? Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the whole earth. He never becomes faint or weary; there is no limit to his understanding. He gives strength to the faint and strengthens the powerless. Youths may become faint and weary, and young men stumble and fall, but those who trust in the Lord will renew their strength; they will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not become weary, they will walk and not faint.

The second Sunday is a day of preparation. It is a matter of being ready. The Israelites of the time were waiting and preparing for the day that the Messiah would come along. There is about a 400 year gap known as the “intertestamental times” This gap starts at the end of the last prophecy and ends at Christ’s arrival. The people had been waiting for centuries. Generations came and went with no sign of the Messiah. Like we like to say, God keeps His promises and He delivered on this promise of the Messiah on that first Christmas.

This comfort that Isaiah is speaking of here has nothing to do with mankind and what they are doing. Instead, it has to do with God and His coming into the sphere of human activity. They need to be prepared for this occasion. It is interesting because the religious elite had been keeping watch. They knew of the Messianic prophecies, but there was no agreement on what that would look like. That’s why they missed who John the Baptist was. It’s amazing to me that they had not given up hope that the Messiah was inbound. They sent their people to see John because at first they thought maybe he was the Messiah. John answers no three times.

John 1:20–23 “He didn’t deny it but confessed, “I am not the Messiah.” “What then?” they asked him. “Are you Elijah?” “I am not,” he said. “Are you the Prophet?” “No,” he answered. “Who are you, then?” they asked. “We need to give an answer to those who sent us. What can you tell us about yourself?” He said, “I am a voice of one crying out in the wilderness: Make straight the way of the Lord—just as Isaiah the prophet said.”” Notice that John used a bit from the Isaiah text in his answer. The question about whether he was Elijah makes perfect sense. It was understood that Elijah would come again as a herald for the arrival of the Messiah. The guys take the message back to the Pharisees and they do nothing with it. Of course they don’t do anything with it because they were prepared for Elijah first and then the Messiah. It’s odd to me that they miss that especially considering John tells them about the One coming after him. This is evidenced in how the Pharisees treat Jesus during His earthly ministry. They don’t take this information and rally around Him and give Him support in His ministry. Instead, they become His enemy. I think the reason is because the Messiah is not what they wanted Him to be. They wanted someone that was going to come in and destroy their enemies. They wanted a military ruler that would establish a kingdom on earth forever. One day, that will happen. One day there will be peace on earth. It is going to happen. The Pharisees, though are not prepared to meet the Messiah. They are only prepared to meet the version of the Messiah that they want. They are ready for the Messiah, but only if He meets their expectations. they missed it because they are prepared for the Messiah on their terms, not on God’s terms. When we come to Jesus, we come to Him on His terms, He doesn’t come to us on our terms.

In great irony, later in the gospel messages there is a question about Elijah. Matthew 17:10–13 “So the disciples asked him, “Why then do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?” “Elijah is coming and will restore everything,” he replied. “But I tell you: Elijah has already come, and they didn’t recognize him. On the contrary, they did whatever they pleased to him. In the same way the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands.” Then the disciples understood that he had spoken to them about John the Baptist.”

They were not wrong to think that the Messiah was coming in power. The Isaiah text clearly states that He will come with strength and His power will establish His rule. Jesus did come with strength. He did come with power. However, He did not establish His rule from a political standpoint. Instead, He established His rule in the hearts of those that call on Him as Lord. So it is not so much that the Pharisees were unprepared, they were only prepared for what they wanted, not what God wanted.

The hymn “Joy to the World” always used to confuse me as a child. Not all of it, just the one line in there that says, “Let every heart prepare Him room.” As a kid, that did not make much sense to me. After all, He is God, so why wouldn’t people make room for Him. The older I get, though, the more I realize how important making room in our hearts for Jesus is. God is not going to force us to believe in Him. He does not want a bunch of mindless robots that do whatever He says. He wants people to choose Him. He wants people to love Him back the way that He loves Him. That takes us giving Him room in our hearts to make the changes.

In John’s gospel, there is the story of the lame man by the pool of Bethesda. He has been waiting years to get into the pool when the waters stirred. It was believed that when the water was stirring the pool had healing qualities about it. Jesus approaches the man and asks a very telling question. John 5:5–6 “One man was there who had been disabled for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and realized he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to get well?””

Rather than going up to the man and telling him to walk because he has been healed, Jesus asks the man if he even wants to be healed. He had been like that for 38 years. It was something that he was used to. For all we know, he made a relatively good living sitting there on his mat all day long as people dropped him some coins. He was not able to work because of the disability, so odds are he received support from some kind hearted people. The life wasn’t great, but it was tolerable and it was a life he knew.

Jesus asks if he wants to be healed because this means a complete change in his life. If the man is healed, now he can work. He will have to provide for himself. Suddenly he finds himself able bodied and people are not going to throw money his way because there won’t be sympathy there anymore. When we look at the text further the man is healed and the first thing that happens to him is he gets in trouble with the Pharisees. He’s carrying his mat on the Sabbath, something he had been unable to do for the last 38 years. The Pharisees don’t glory in the miracle that was performed. Instead, they jump on the guy for breaking the rules.

When we become followers of Jesus, we have to be prepared because things are not going to be the same. When we receive the Holy Spirit, we have to be ready for Him to start making changes on us. Some folks don’t want to change. Some folks are happy where they are at. Some folks are happy where they are at even though they complain about their current situation. Sailors are a great example of that. We have a saying in the Navy that a complaining Sailor is a happy Sailor and I worked with a lot of happy squids.

There are some people I have talked to that legitimately believe in Jesus. They know that He is the Son of God and He is the Messiah, but they will not come to Him as Lord because they know when they do, they will have to make a change. When they do, they will have to give up a sin in their lives and they would rather keep that sin. They aren’t prepared to give it up despite the fact that they know the truth. They don’t want to give it up.

When we come to Jesus, there will be change. There has to be change because He is going to start the life long process of making us less like ourselves and more like Him. If we don’t come to Jesus with the expectation to stay the same, then we aren’t coming to Him on His terms, we are coming to Him on our terms.

Jesus is the Prince of Peace. That is another tenet of this Advent Sunday. Isaiah 9:5–7 “For every trampling boot of battle and the bloodied garments of war will be burned as fuel for the fire. For a child will be born for us, a son will be given to us, and the government will be on his shoulders. He will be named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. The dominion will be vast, and its prosperity will never end. He will reign on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish and sustain it with justice and righteousness from now on and forever. The zeal of the Lord of Armies will accomplish this.”

I look forward to that day. Every Sunday morning we pray that the Gospel will flourish because the world is a messed up place and it only seems to be getting worse. I’ve told you the stories of standing topside onboard the ship and watching bombs exploding just a few miles away as a civil war was raging. I can’t wait for the day when we have true peace throughout the world.

That peace starts in the heart, though. That peace starts when Jesus reigns in the heart of people. Until that day happens, then we will not have peace. We won’t have it because we will be too concerned about ourselves and our status.

Matthew 20:25–28 “Jesus called them over and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those in high positions act as tyrants over them. It must not be like that among you. On the contrary, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave; just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.””

Can you imagine what the world would look like if everyone was looking to take care of everyone else before they take care of themselves? That’s one way that peace on earth would flourish. A bunch of people committed to the LORD and doing His will. Part of that is taking care of other people. That’s how peace is achieved, not through violent action, but by being peaceful ourselves. Peace on earth through our goodwill toward others.

Jesus did come in power, they just did not recognize it because they mistook Him for being gentle. Jesus showed His power over sin and temptation by walking in the earth as a man. He was tempted and did not succumb to that temptation. He responded peacefully as He was led to the slaughter. That peace showed His power. Then after He was put in the grave, He rose again showing His power over death.

This advent and for the rest of our lives, I hope that we can respond to things peacefully. As humans we spend plenty of time getting upset about stuff we don’t need to be. I’m included in that list. We can get so worked up over an affront or an insult thinking about how we could have responded. There’s peace in just letting it roll off our backs. I like to tell my kids when things happen that we can’t control, we have to let it be like water rolling off a duck’s back.

The only way we can have that peace is through Jesus. During this advent season, let’s reflect on the peace that God delivered that Christmas morning. Let’s prepare ourselves to meet Him again one day.