Preparing for Advent

What is Advent?

Advent is a season to remember that God reached down from heaven and extended Hope in the form of Jesus Christ. Advent means “coming” or “arrival.” Christ’s birth was “the first Advent” and the anticipation of Christ’s return in “the second Advent.”

When is Advent?

The season of Advent begins four Sunday’s before Christmas. The four week waiting period during the four Sunday’s of Advent represent the four centuries of waiting between the last recorded Word of God from the prophet Malachi (in the Old Testament) and the arrival of Jesus Christ (in the New Testament). Advent is time of preparing hearts for Christ’s birth, both in celebration, reflection, and repentance.

What the does the Advent wreath and candles symbolize?

The greenery wreath, a circle, represents God’s never-ending mercy and His eternity. The color green represents the renewal of eternal life in Christ. The candles within the wreath symbolize the light of God coming to the world through the birth of His son, Jesus Christ.

The lighting of the first candle begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas. The first candle symbolizes Hope—the anticipation of Hope in the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. The three remaining candles symbolizing Love, Joy, and Peace are light each Sunday during the season of Advent. Together, each of the four candles tells the part of the Christmas story of Bethlehem, Shepherds, and Angels. The fifth and center candle represents Christ, the heart of the season, giving light to the world.

~April Dawn White

-----------

Hope

Advent means “arrival.” It is a season of waiting, anticipation, and preparation, as we seek to make ourselves ready for an encounter with Jesus.

During Advent, we are encouraged to take time to prepare our hearts for Christmas. To quiet ourselves before God. It is the season of waiting—these next four Sundays it will provide us with an opportunity to harness the emotions of the heart and focus them on the coming of Jesus.

Ephesians 2:1–10 NIV

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Quote:

There are no hopeless situations; there are only people who have grown hopeless about them.

-Clare Boothe Luce

Remember that story I shared with you a few weeks ago about the Father and Son who collected priceless art? The Father and Son were so close. The son went to war and was killed. The Father was left with all the at but a friend of the son came to the door of that dad one night and gave him a picture of his son saving his friend - in which he died doing so. The Father treasured that piece of art because he loved his son and it was priceless to him. When He died many art collectors came to the auction and waited impatiently for the priceless works of art to be displayed. The first item up for auction was the picture of his son painted by no one famous. The audience waited and groaned. The autioneer asked gor offers and this picture was sold for $100. The audience was relieved but the auctioneer said the auction was over.

Someone spoke up and asked, “What do you mean it’s over? We didn’t come here for a picture of some old guy’s son. What about all of these paintings? There are millions of dollars worth of art here! We demand that you explain what’s going on!” The auctioneer replied, “It’s very simple. According to the will of the father, whoever takes the son... gets it all.”

That is the essence of the story of Christmas: Whoever takes the Son gets it all.

The Bible puts it like this:

1 John 5:11–12 NKJV

And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.

The one who has the Son has it all.

But exactly what is included in the “all”?

There are several things, and I would suggest that the first thing is that Advent promises new life in Christ because:

It means we now know what God is like. The coming of Christ gave us a living picture of who God is.

Christ’s coming put a face on God.

The Bible says,

Colossians 1:15–16 NKJV

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.

This is what we mean by the incarnation — God came to earth wrapped in a human body.

The God of heaven came to live among us that we might know what He is truly like.

He came to teach us.

He came to die for us that we might be forgiven.

He rose from the dead to help us know that we too will be raised.

He ascended to the Father to intercede for us.

He promised that he will return so that eternal hope would burn in our hearts.

He opened the doors of heaven.

What would I do without Jesus?

Imagine a world without God, in the person of Jesus Christ, had He never come to earth. We would not have the high expressions in music that came from men like Bach and Beethoven.

We would not have Handel’s “Messiah.” Harvard and Yale would not exist, because they were started as Christian institutions of higher learning.

The founders of these schools believed that to study “science” was to study the work of God and understand how he made the world.

It was a way of learning more about what he is like. Many hospitals would not exist, because they were begun by people who had hearts full of compassion for those who were ill, due to their personal experience with Jesus Christ and being transformed by his love.

Our way of dating history would be completely different, since all of history is divided into the things which occurred before Christ and the things which occurred after Christ.

There would not be churches on every corner of our cities.

We would have half a Bible.

We would not have heard of the love of a personal God.

God would never have visited the world and we would have no hope of his returning to the earth.

There would be no Christmas — no gifts symbolic of God’s greatest gift.

There would be no Christmas carols or hymns.

The world without Jesus would be “always winter and never Christmas.”

Without Jesus, Mary Magdalene would have died in her sin.

Matthew, the tax collector, would still have been a traitor to his countrymen.

The Roman soldier would have continued his cruelty.

Peter, James and John would have done nothing more with their lives than fish for a living.

The Apostle Paul would never have been more than a cruel Pharisee steeped in legalism with an unrelenting demand for perfection from other people.

The people who needed healing, during the time that Christ would have lived, would still have been broken in body and spirit.

The lame would still have been lame; the blind would have remained in their darkness; the deaf would have still lived in silence.

We would never have heard the words:

John 14:27 NIV

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

or

John 15:11 NIV

I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.

John 10:10 NIV

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

God with Us

This is why we sing about Emmanuel at Christmas — God is with us. He was with us 2000 years ago, and he is with us now in this present moment to show us what God is like.

We have a God who cared enough to come. No other religion in the world can make that claim.

He showed us what he was like and his name was love.

He was the friend of sinners and failures.

He showed love and compassion to the outcasts of the world.

He healed the sick and raised the dead. He taught us not to use the values of this world to determine our worth, for he said,

Matthew 20:16 NLT

“So those who are last now will be first then, and those who are first will be last.”

He taught us that our value to God was more important than what anyone else thought about us.

Some of you have seen “The Antique Road Show” on television. Often someone comes who has paid a few dollars for an item at a garage sale asking for an evaluation of its worth. Then comes the look of surprise and shock when they learn the item is worth several thousand dollars.

When I see that happen, I think of how God goes about taking people who are not seen as very valuable by the world and placing a very high value on them, because that is the kind of God he is.

How do we know that?

Because we see it in the life of Jesus over and over again. The outcasts of society seemed to be his specialty.

The sinful and sick, the poor and weak were the people he pulled out of the trash and transformed into a treasure.

If Jesus had not come we would never have known that about God.

And because Christ showed us what God was like, we want to be like him. We have been transformed by his grace and renewed by his love.

Extend Grace

We extend grace to others because it has been so wonderfully extended to us.

We forgive because we have been forgiven.

We give because he gave to us.

We live because he has given us eternal life.

Because Jesus came, we know what God is like — living love.

Advent promises new life because: It means our sins can be forgiven.

Think for a moment of the worst thing you have ever done — the thing that makes your brain burn with shame. And then think of what it would be like if Jesus had not come and you could not be forgiven for your sin.

What would that be like?

Your guilt would never be relieved, and condemnation would always be hanging over your head.

But since Jesus came, forgiveness has come to those of us who have received the grace that Christ came to offer.

We know the freedom that forgiveness brings. We can forgive ourselves and others because we have experienced the liberating forgiveness that Jesus Christ came to give us.

But if Jesus had never come, we would have only commandments to follow, and we would never hear the great words of the New Testament:

John 3:16–17 NIV

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

We would be missing a Savior. There would be no talk of forgiveness and reconciliation to God, only laws to be obeyed.

Grace would not be a word in our vocabulary.

We would talk about justice, and people getting what they deserved, rather than finding mercy with God.

If Jesus had never come, the woman caught in adultery would never have heard the words:

John 8:11 NIV

“No one, sir,” she said. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

The Bible says,

1 John 3:11 NIV

For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another.

We are children of God because we have been forgiven as an act of the grace Jesus Christ made possible by his atoning death.

It is as simple, and as difficult, as humbling ourselves and asking for the forgiveness which he offers.

But this is more than forgiveness, it brings about a transformation in our lives.

The Bible says,

2 Corinthians 3:18 NIV

And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

Christ came to not only cleanse our hearts, but to change our hearts. We are being transformed into his character more and more with each passing day. Because we live with him, we are becoming like him. His Holy Spirit is working in us to produce his image.

All of this is for one grand purpose, which leads to the third and final point —

Advent promises a new life in Christ

because: It means we have the hope of heaven.

Heaven was made possible by Jesus. As the hymn says,

1 Corinthians 15:19 NIV

If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

Think about what the world would feel like if there was no hope of heaven.

What would you say at the funeral of a loved one if Jesus had not come?

There would be no hope beyond the grave. You could not talk about heaven, or any reason to hope for eternal life with God — only the reality of dissolving into the night.

If Jesus Christ had not come, there would be no book of Revelation; no hope for a returning Savior who would overcome the world and open heaven for us.

There would be no hope of hearing the words:

Matthew 25:21 NIV

“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’

There would not be any hope of a resurrection — not even the concept of one. There would be no eternal life. Nothing to anticipate, except the closing of the casket lid and the coldness of the grave.

But because Jesus came, all that has changed. We live in joyful anticipation of what is yet to come.

In his book Dare to Believe, Dan Baumann illustrates what it is like to know that something is yours even though you have to wait for it. You may even have it in hand, but are not able to enjoy it “out of the box.”

He says that when he was young he always did a lot of snooping at Christmas time, trying to find his gift and figure out what was in the wrapped packages which his Mom hid.

One year he discovered a large package with his name on it that he knew was a set of golf clubs. One shake of that box revealed the unmistakable sound of clubs. He says,

“When Mom wasn’t around, I would go and feel the package, shake it, and pretend that I was on the golf course. The point is, I was already enjoying the pleasures of a future event; namely, the [unwrapping]. It had my name on it. I knew what it was.” It was his, but it would not be handed over to him until Christmas morning. Then he would see with his eyes what before he had only seen with his heart.

Conclusion:

Christmas means that Christ has given us the gift of heaven.

At this point it is still wrapped. But the package has our name on it. We know what awaits us. It is ours.

We would never have received the gift if it were not for Christmas.

But we wait longingly for the day when we will enjoy the gift of heaven in all of its unwrapped wonder. As the Bible says,

2 Peter 3:13 NIV

But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells.

The day will come when we too will hear the words,

Revelation 21:3–4 NIV

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

Because Jesus came, we know what God is like. We experience forgiveness for our sins and the transformation of our hearts and minds. We have received the promise of heaven and eternal life. What better gifts could we ask for?