Advent Brings: Christ

Hope, Love, Joy, Peace, Christ. These are the themes that we have been examining this Advent season. Thousands of people all across the globe have been celebrating these themes, or similar ones, over the last four weeks.

Advent is really about anticipation, waiting, and expectation. We are all familiar with the sense of waiting and anticipation in life. We wait for many good things. Especially this time of year, I think back of childhood and waiting for the sort of euphoric feeling of seeing the Christmas presents under the tree.

My parents were pretty strict about us not seeing or opening any presents before Christmas morning. My mother was an expert at hiding the gifts until the last minute. And I have to admit, waiting was half the fun. I was the kind of kid who didn’t want to snoop around and find them, because that would have spoiled the waiting, the anticipation.

So first thing Christmas morning, I would emerge from my room, down the hall, around the corner, and peer into the living room to see the packages wrapped and placed by my parents the night before. And there was always a little more anticipation, as well, because I knew before one present was opened, my Dad would read the Christmas story from Luke 2. They were very careful to keep Christ right at the heart of every part of Christmas, including the giving of gifts.

Anticipation would grow even further, because I knew that after opening gifts, we would all get dressed and walk down the road to my grandparents’ house, to meet cousins, and aunts and uncles, and sometimes friends, and then we would eat the Christmas breakfast feast that has been a staple in our family for decades.

Yes, all that anticipation. But that is just my story. You also have vivid times of anticipation. Maybe you have been an engaged young lady waiting for your wedding day to arrive. Maybe you have been a hopeful employee waiting to hear back from that interview. Maybe you have been an eager parent or loved one waiting to hear the outcome of a surgery. Or maybe, and perhaps the most poignant and vivid of all kinds of waiting, maybe you have been an expectant parent waiting for the arrival of your newborn child. Perhaps of all the earthly “waiting” experiences, that is the most fulfilling, for you find that it was fully worth the wait - fully worth the anticipation and the earnestness - when you see that child, the eyes, the fingers and toes, the color of their hair, hear the soft but earnest cry for the first time, you know the anticipation was worth every bit of excitement, anxiety, worry, and wonder.

Well, the birth of a baby, in a real and also transcendent sense, is what the anticipation and waiting of Advent is all about.

We read in Luke 2 the account of the most significant birth of all history, the account that brings to an end the most poignant “waiting” of all time, the account that secured the reality of promises, assured the faith of many people, and set in motion the most wonderful story of hope, love, joy, and peace that ever there was.

Luke 2:1–7 ESV

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be registered, each to his own town. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

What do you see and hear when you read that account? Do you see tradition? Do you see history? Do you see beauty and simplicity? Yes, all those things are present, but what we see in that account is Divine Providence, Divine planning, Divine Wisdom, and Divine Mystery.

The birth of Jesus Christ, the incarnation of the Son of God, remains the most mysterious yet beautiful displays of God’s work that has ever been. It is no wonder that the world celebrates, though perhaps many in ignorance, and all of us surely shaded to the fulness of the wonder and beauty. But the birth of Jesus Christ, the incarnation of the son of God, is the centerpiece of our celebration, the gem and jewel of this season, and the dayspring of life and light that makes our hope, love, joy, and peace real. Advent brings Christ.

The Christmas Story is a story of Divine Timing. At the perfect time, God sent His Son to redeem men and make slaves into sons.

Galatians 4:3–7 (ESV)

In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

Advent Brings: Christ

In Galatians 4, Paul is speaking, as he often does, of the analogy of Abraham and his seed to our faith. We are, as Paul closes chapter 3, Abraham’s offspring by faith - children of the promise. And what promise is that? The promise that God would bless all the families of the earth through Abraham’s seed - through his offspring. That happened in small ways over history, but it happened in one big way when one of his offspring - his Offspring (with a captial O) was born in Bethlehem to a virgin named Mary.

“We were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.” Paul says. Without going into great detail, we can simply say that before Christ entered in, we were slaves to what was - what was outside of our control - the way things were. Whether that was the physical elements, the spiritual elements, or the law which proved us guilty, we were slaves, and any freedom would come only after anticipation, waiting.

Verse 1, “as long as...” Verse 2, “until the date...”

Well, with our waiting, Paul turns our focus to the ultimate waiting, and that was the waiting until the “fulness of time...”

Whatever filled this time up, is perhaps a mystery. In God’s wisdom, in His glory, in Providence, the fulness of time came just over 2,000 years ago. What was wrapped up in the fulness of time? Was it the Pax Romana, the relative peace in the Roman empire? Was it the relative ease of international travel due to the empirical road system? Was it the freedom of communication due to a widespread marketplace language, Greek, that was all around the known world? Was it the political tension for the Jewish people under the rule of Herod the Great?

Was it the timing of the taxing that brought Joseph to his hometown of Bethlehem, the city of David where the Messiah was promised to be born?

Perhaps it was all these things, and even if it wasn’t all these served to make the life of this child stand out like a chandelier of Grace and Majesty. But whatever it was, the anticipation, the hope, the expectation culminated in God “sending forth His son.”

There is a lot wrapped up in that. God sent forth his Son. He didn’t create a new son, He didn’t beget a new son, he sent forth His son, His eternal Son. Yes, Jesus Christ was and is the God-man. Forever existing in perfect harmony with His Father, yet willingly lowering Himself into His own creation.

“Born of a woman, born under the law.”

Born, in one sense, like us, to live, in one sense, like us. Yet, his birth was miraculous, and his life was miraculous. Born without sin, lived without sin. Doing what we could never do, to accomplish what we could never accomplish - redemption, salvation, adoption.

The Son, then, became a servant, so that the slaves could become sons. The Divine Servant, that Isaiah spoke of, was a servant of his Father, a servant of his people, and a servant ultimately unto death. Imagine the creator, giver, and sustainer of life undergoing death - but He did. For Redemption, for salvation, for Adoption.

Now we are sons! And if you are not, then by the work of The Son, you may become one by faith. You, who are slave to sin and under the law, may obtain redemption by Grace through Faith in this Son. And you, too, who are a slave, can receive adoption. Adoption in which the Spirit within us cries out “abba! Father!”

A slave can hardly address his master, his superior. But a son can cry out to His Father with confidence, knowing that he hears. Knowing that he cares. Knowing that he loves.

A good Father always has an eye for the future, an eye for planning, an eye for provision. God the Heavenly Father, in His infinite wisdom, had an eye for perfect timing when He sent Jesus Christ. The culmination of Redemption’s story, the anticipation of promises made, and the realization of those promises being kept.

So as you celebrate, may all these themes of Advent point brightly and clearly to Christ. Just as God’s redemption plan pointed perfectly to Him with Masterful, Divine timing, so may the Hope, Love, Joy, and Peace of Advent show you Christ - for it is because of and through Jesus Christ that we know and experience all these things.