The Hope of Advent
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The Hope of Advent
The Hope of Advent
Isn’t it great that we are all different? If we were all the same, life would be different for sure. Depending on the personality type, our world would be interesting to say the least. If we were all strong personalities or dominant, we would fight all the time, want to be right all the time, and therefore destroy. If we all had relational personalities, (like the 60’s) and love all the time, nothing would get accomplished, if we were all steady, we may laugh a little, cry a little but no one would take a leadership role. If we were all compliant and followed all the rules, saw only black and white, boring!
Think of the differences between the disciples. Matthew, tax collector, dominant. Peter speaks first thinks second, dominant. Thomas, doubts, compliant. Andrew and some of the others never really make waves, steady personalities.
1. Now imagine John the Baptist. John had a mission in this life. John had a job to do, John had a purpose.
a. Remember his story? Luke Ch 1
i. Zacharias was his father, Elizabeth his mother. Father was a priest. Elizabeth was barren. An angel of the Lord appeared to him standing on the right side of the table, gave him a message. Name your son John.
For he will be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink. He will also be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb. And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. He will also go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, ‘to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,’ and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”
For he will be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink. He will also be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb.
The spirit of Elijah. Elijah, a great prophet. A prophet who stood before the people with great power as a witness for God to Israel. He called them back to God. He passed his mantle to Elisha and now to John. Johns story resonates with images of the Old Testament. He is a renewed voice of Isaiah crying in the wilderness, “Prepare the way of the Lord!”
Luke 1:15-17
ii. Father was a priest
ii.
He calls Kings, noblemen, peasants all to repentance. Back away from your table and seats of power and find real power. He is odd, he lives in the desert and eats locusts and wild honey. He appears crazy. He is a misfit. Some say he is filled with a demon.
iii.
Compare the rolls of John the Baptist and Jesus:
John
2. Jesus is the Incarnate Son of the Heavenly Father and a virgin mother. Born in Bethlehem, raised in Nazareth. Father passed away between His 13th year and 29th year. Not sure when. He was the first born. He had to take care of the household, his mother, his brothers for a time.
a. Although He is deeply connected to all that God has done in Israel, He is coming to usher in a new creation. John is preparing the way, now the glory of the Lord must shine forth. The blind see, the lame speak, the deaf hear the dead will live again. His whole persona invites people to experience God’s grace. People that aren’t like Jesus, like Jesus. He calls them to embrace divine love, to enter into a new birth. He begins to take away the old traditions, and make a new start. This newness - turning upside down the world - also invites ridicule from the religious. He is a rebel. He is a glutton and a drunkard. He turned water into wine after all. He is a friend of tax collectors and sinners, He, is no friend of the church.
Interestingly enough, whether John or Jesus, the religious of the day miss both marks. Sure some come to repentance, but not all. Why? Why did they miss the Messiah? Why did the fail to embrace Him? Because He was different? The stated He spoke as one having authority. He raised the dead, calmed the storms!
Scott Daniels writes this: my guess is that their failure, like ours, is due to some combination of narcissism, false expectations, idolatry, worldliness, spiritual blindness, ans self centeredness in all its various ugly forms. We are s practiced in observing, honoring, and being entertained by principalities and powers that it is hard to see all the ways they form us and even harder to notice the Kingdom of God when it comes.
What Forms You
Are your formed from a spiritual past or a worldly past?
Are you formed by parents of love and grace or parents of worldliness?
Are you formed by truth and truth alone or is there room for grace to enter in?
Are you formed by entertainment? Family? Books? Music? War? A movement? A moment? A hope? A calling?
Are you formed to lead? To follow? Teach?
Are you present in the moments of life or are you always hoping to be somewhere else, missing out on the small caricatures of personalities, emotions, and the natural tendencies God gives each of us that make us unique?
The potter and the clay
If what forms us is lust, we miss love
Are you willing to allow the call of God to mold you today
Are you willing to fast before God that His will would mold others: would you pray on behalf of others this advent season
Discern the Times
The kingdom of God has rhythms, and seasons. We both feast and fast. We worship, we repent, we pray.
Advent is a fast. Christmas is a feast. Lent is a fast, Easter and the resurrection is a feast.
There are patterns and movements just as John and Jesus came from the same God with messages for the times, as did Elijah, Jeremiah, Isaiah and the like.
There is a call to repentance, a call to fast, a call to feast.
We have been called to pray for all men, called to rest, now a call to fast for a moment and get close to God. Before this Christmas, would you set aside a meal to sincerely fast and pray? Would you, on behalf of the church, your family, your neighbor, take a meal away, push back from the table and pray for their salvation? Pray for true repentance? Pray for abundant life and a Holy Christmas feast. A Feast of immeasurable spiritual proportion.
What is your Hope this Advent
Is it the same hope of our Saviour: that all men are to be saved? Is it new life for yourself, free from the curse of original sin, a freedom from temptation, a higher living n Christ? Is your advent hope the presence of the resurrected Christ?
Is your hope more grace, peace?
These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
1 Co3
Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show by good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic. For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.
in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show by good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic. For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.
James 3:13-18