Encore Post: Great forest fires, earthquakes, hurricanes and floods are all over our news. Acts of unspeakable evil and cruelty occur on almost a weekly basis. A nation routinely kills babies in the womb, celebrates immorality and lectures the church when it doesn’t join them. All the signs of the end of days fill our T.V.s, cell phones and computer screens. It makes you just want to scream, “Tear open the heavens and get down here, Lord, and do something about it! What are you waiting for? (See Isaiah 64)
To most of the world’s religions, the high god who made the world is a distant god, who made the world and tired of it, going away to leave it to lesser gods and our own devices. We are left alone to deal with the mess that is our world and our part in making it worse. Even more modern thinkers, like the Deists, thought of God as a great watchmaker, who made the world capable of running itself, wound it up and walked away. Pop songs muse: “God is watching us… from a distance” and “The Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost, they caught the last train for the coast, the day the music died.” We just have to cope, they advise.
Advent breaks into that mood and reminds us that is not true at all. The God who made the world and called it “very good” intends to do something about it. He promised to come himself, in the person of his Son, born of a woman, to become one of us. It reminds us that he kept that promise and to prepare to celebrate that coming, receive him as he comes to us each day and how he will finally come to set things right.
The season of Advent developed over the centuries to do just that. Like Lent prepared the church to celebrate Easter, Advent would come to celebrate Christmas. For some, it was also a season of repentance, as a deliberate counter to the wild and immoral way pagans celebrate their December holidays. So in many places, Advent’s color is purple or black, the Gloria is not sung and people fast. For others, it is a season of hope, with the color being blue and carols sung to anticipate Christmas.
Either way, the church cries out: “Stir up your power, O Lord, and come!” Come as you did, born to die that we might live. Come with your grace and live among us. Come and bring us all home to be with you. Come, Lord Jesus, Come!
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There was anticipation to read on to hear more. On reflecting I wonder if I can align my thoughts with “preparation” and “it happens and ends when you least expect” .
A very interesting concise view. I like the outline with the concept of Advent and Lent – Christmas and Easter.
Thanks for sharing. May God continue to give you divine inspiration as you reflect and share with His people.
Blessings.
Thanks! I’m glad it was helpful to you. May God bless your Advent and Christmas seasons!
It’s overwhelming sometimes. Tears filled my eyes by the time I got to the bottom of your article. It’s something I pray about often. I ask myself how we as a nation could have allowed ourselves to fall away from God as far as we have. When I came home from China, due to the pandemic, my eyes were opened to the stark reality of how different our America truly is from when I was a kid. My heart grieves for my country. I pray the Lord have mercy and continue to be slow in anger. I pray for more and more Americans to wake up and to return their hearts and/or give their hearts to Jesus. At the same time, I do often pray, “Come, Lord Jesus, come!” How glorious a day that will be! In the meantime, I must remind myself, and your article did a good job of that — In spite of things and the way they seem and the way they are, Jesus is still Lord and we celebrate His coming each and every year at Christmas time and we look forward to Christmas joys and the Hope of hearts set ablaze daily with faith and repentance to move us one by one and in multitudes back into a nation filled with God-fearing Americans living their lives for Christ. Merry Christmas indeed to everyone.
I’m glad it blessed you. Since my wife Kris entered rest, my perspective shifted. I live here as an ex-pat. When my work is done, my angel will ferry me home, at a moment I least expect. If the Lord tarries, all the great nations including ours will fall and new ones take their place. In the mean time, it appears the Lord will give us as a nation a respite.