Graduate 77: Advent
The holiday shopping season ‘formally’ opened at 4:00 AM last Friday. In the weeks preceding that, lights appeared on a few houses. Decorations went up in some major chain stores before Halloween. With each passing year, the season seems to start earlier and grow ever longer. Yet, strangely, it remains, by far, the most stressful time of the year—one of great dis-content as more and more effort and energy is poured into meeting (or exceeding) expectations of all that this season is supposed to be.
With all the work and toil that go into making Christmas ‘merry’, it stands out as a supreme irony that the whole point of the season centers just on what people, by their best effort and energy, could not accomplish. Did you ever stop to think about why Christmas is merry? It’s not merry because of anything we do; it’s not merry because we make it merry. It’s merry because the very thing that we could not do was done for us. That is what we celebrate—that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, took on human flesh in order to save us from our sins. He brought with Him the hope and promise of new life—abundant life. He was, in very form and essence, God, and opened the way for us to know and be with God, our heavenly Father, Creator, and King.
This weekend marks the beginning of the Advent season—the first season of the church calendar. Over the next twenty-five days, the Church looks forward to and celebrates that first coming of Jesus Christ. If you grew up in the church, you may have participated in Advent readings during this time—a Scripture passage for each day of the four weeks leading up to Christmas day.
If you’ve never done it before, or haven’t yet given thought to it for this year, I am going to (try to) set up a series of posts following a reading cycle known as “Jesse Tree”. (We'll see what my schedule allows.) For several years, when I was little, my family read through this series each December. Each post will include the Scripture reference for that day’s reading and some reflection/comments of mine. If you don’t have a Bible available to you, you can look up the passages at www.biblegateway.com.
Most of the readings will be drawn from the Old Testament, moving chronologically from creation to the birth of Christ. Though Jesus’ incarnation was a singular and unparalleled event, it was not without precedent. From the very beginning of time and throughout history, God has been doing for people what they could not do for themselves. Despite humanity’s disobedience, rebellion, and wickedness God has reached out in love and mercy to receive all who will come to Him. We will see some of the ways in which His plan of redemption unfolds over time to culminate in the life and ministry and sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
My hope is that you would receive and experience and know the blessings of Jesus Christ—remembering that you cannot reach them by any amount of effort or energy on your part. Rather, they have been made present and freely available to you. The whole point of the season lies in this—that we could not reach God in heaven, so He came down to us.
--
God is in this place,
And that reality, seen and understood by the grace of God in Christ Jesus through the work of the Holy Spirit, makes all the difference in the world.
With all the work and toil that go into making Christmas ‘merry’, it stands out as a supreme irony that the whole point of the season centers just on what people, by their best effort and energy, could not accomplish. Did you ever stop to think about why Christmas is merry? It’s not merry because of anything we do; it’s not merry because we make it merry. It’s merry because the very thing that we could not do was done for us. That is what we celebrate—that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, took on human flesh in order to save us from our sins. He brought with Him the hope and promise of new life—abundant life. He was, in very form and essence, God, and opened the way for us to know and be with God, our heavenly Father, Creator, and King.
This weekend marks the beginning of the Advent season—the first season of the church calendar. Over the next twenty-five days, the Church looks forward to and celebrates that first coming of Jesus Christ. If you grew up in the church, you may have participated in Advent readings during this time—a Scripture passage for each day of the four weeks leading up to Christmas day.
If you’ve never done it before, or haven’t yet given thought to it for this year, I am going to (try to) set up a series of posts following a reading cycle known as “Jesse Tree”. (We'll see what my schedule allows.) For several years, when I was little, my family read through this series each December. Each post will include the Scripture reference for that day’s reading and some reflection/comments of mine. If you don’t have a Bible available to you, you can look up the passages at www.biblegateway.com.
Most of the readings will be drawn from the Old Testament, moving chronologically from creation to the birth of Christ. Though Jesus’ incarnation was a singular and unparalleled event, it was not without precedent. From the very beginning of time and throughout history, God has been doing for people what they could not do for themselves. Despite humanity’s disobedience, rebellion, and wickedness God has reached out in love and mercy to receive all who will come to Him. We will see some of the ways in which His plan of redemption unfolds over time to culminate in the life and ministry and sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
My hope is that you would receive and experience and know the blessings of Jesus Christ—remembering that you cannot reach them by any amount of effort or energy on your part. Rather, they have been made present and freely available to you. The whole point of the season lies in this—that we could not reach God in heaven, so He came down to us.
--
God is in this place,
And that reality, seen and understood by the grace of God in Christ Jesus through the work of the Holy Spirit, makes all the difference in the world.
posted by Metaphysician_delta | 1:27 PM
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