Over the past few days, I've come to the realization that I've been doing Advent wrong my whole life. To me, Advent has always been some sort of Christmas pre-game, that looks and feels just like Christmas, but the colors are purple and pink instead of red and green. Now it’s almost laughable, to think of how, in previous years, I would just sort of drift aimlessly towards the 25th, and think that, I don’t know, through some kind of divine transfusion, I’d be fully ready to welcome Jesus on His birthday. – False.
In prayer yesterday, the Lord and I were talking about preparing and being made ready. The word He gave me was - anticipation, which means to take something into consideration before it comes. Literally, it means before-take, or to be taken before. That’s what the season of Advent is all about. We need to go back, to remember, to enter into a time before Christ came into the world or into our lives. In doing this, it’s not like we’re forgetting that Jesus is coming. No. It is because He’s coming that we allow ourselves to be taken back to the time before He came. In doing this, we ready our souls to enter into a glorious encounter with the Incarnation.
It’s sort of like hiking up a mountain before the sun comes up. The sun’s coming up either way. It’s still going to shine down on you no matter where you are. But - if you really want to be swept away and impacted by the glory of that sunrise, the summit of that mountain is where you want to be. So you’ve got to be up before the sun comes up, intentionally taking yourself to a time when it’s dark, and you have to make the effort to climb, all so you can be perfectly ready greet the dawn.
Now, Christ is always present, but one of the things I’ve been doing this Advent - all 4 days of it - is intentionally trying to take my soul back to the time before Christ came. God’s timing is perfect. He sent Jesus at a particular moment in our history. And what, for His people Israel, was going on during that time before Christ?
Desolation. Suffering. Loss. Exile.
The Old Testament readings the Church gives us during this season highlight these things. In the midst of their brokenness and darkness, God spoke courage into to His people. The prophets heralded His promise, that one day, He would come and rescue them. There would be light and peace. God gave them hope.
Hope.
They had hope in their hearts before Christ came.
And the thing about hope is that – by definition – for us to have it, we have to be longing for something good that we don’t have. There is something distant that we desire, so we hope for it. There’s a separation, which offers room for anticipation.
We need to acknowledge the places in our lives, where there is an ache for God's presence, where we long for Christ to come. This is our way to re-enter into that time before Christ took on flesh, when there was a distance between the Lord and humanity. We need to allow ourselves to wait on and hope for the Lord, and let Him come for us. After all, that’s what we celebrate at Christmas, that Christ our hope, our Love, has come. The ancient Israelites had to wait 600, 700 years for that promise of Emmanuel to be made manifest. We should be able to hope and anticipate for 3, 4 weeks.
May this time of Advent be a season of remembering all we have to hope for in Christ, in the love, peace, healing, mercy, goodness and salvation that He brings and offers to the whole world.
May we go before. May we prepare ourselves to receive Him, Emmanuel, God with us.
In prayer yesterday, the Lord and I were talking about preparing and being made ready. The word He gave me was - anticipation, which means to take something into consideration before it comes. Literally, it means before-take, or to be taken before. That’s what the season of Advent is all about. We need to go back, to remember, to enter into a time before Christ came into the world or into our lives. In doing this, it’s not like we’re forgetting that Jesus is coming. No. It is because He’s coming that we allow ourselves to be taken back to the time before He came. In doing this, we ready our souls to enter into a glorious encounter with the Incarnation.
It’s sort of like hiking up a mountain before the sun comes up. The sun’s coming up either way. It’s still going to shine down on you no matter where you are. But - if you really want to be swept away and impacted by the glory of that sunrise, the summit of that mountain is where you want to be. So you’ve got to be up before the sun comes up, intentionally taking yourself to a time when it’s dark, and you have to make the effort to climb, all so you can be perfectly ready greet the dawn.
Now, Christ is always present, but one of the things I’ve been doing this Advent - all 4 days of it - is intentionally trying to take my soul back to the time before Christ came. God’s timing is perfect. He sent Jesus at a particular moment in our history. And what, for His people Israel, was going on during that time before Christ?
Desolation. Suffering. Loss. Exile.
The Old Testament readings the Church gives us during this season highlight these things. In the midst of their brokenness and darkness, God spoke courage into to His people. The prophets heralded His promise, that one day, He would come and rescue them. There would be light and peace. God gave them hope.
Hope.
They had hope in their hearts before Christ came.
And the thing about hope is that – by definition – for us to have it, we have to be longing for something good that we don’t have. There is something distant that we desire, so we hope for it. There’s a separation, which offers room for anticipation.
We need to acknowledge the places in our lives, where there is an ache for God's presence, where we long for Christ to come. This is our way to re-enter into that time before Christ took on flesh, when there was a distance between the Lord and humanity. We need to allow ourselves to wait on and hope for the Lord, and let Him come for us. After all, that’s what we celebrate at Christmas, that Christ our hope, our Love, has come. The ancient Israelites had to wait 600, 700 years for that promise of Emmanuel to be made manifest. We should be able to hope and anticipate for 3, 4 weeks.
May this time of Advent be a season of remembering all we have to hope for in Christ, in the love, peace, healing, mercy, goodness and salvation that He brings and offers to the whole world.
May we go before. May we prepare ourselves to receive Him, Emmanuel, God with us.