Are You Really Ready for Christmas?

Surely by now you’ve been asked, “Are you ready for Christmas?” By which we generally mean, “Do you have all the presents bought and wrapped, all the decorations hung, all the food bought, and all the other to-dos crossed off your list?” We know we need to be prepared for something—but what?

Most often, we assume we are to be ready for that magical moment of Christmas morning when we gather around the tree and distribute gifts to our loved ones.

Like me, you might find yourself asking, “Is that what it’s really about?” Your gut tells you you’re somehow missing the mark.

CHRISTMAS BEGINS AT AN ALTAR

Thankfully, Scripture gives us a clue as to how God wants us to prepare for Christmas. We need look no further than the surprising beginning of the Christmas story. We presume the opening scene to be of a Jewish man carefully accompanying his donkey-riding, full-term fiancée through a snowstorm to the Little Town of Bethlehem.

But the Christmas story actually begins about fifteen months earlier with an elderly, childless couple—not a couple waiting for the arrival of a baby, but a couple defined by waiting for a child, and welcoming none (see Luke 1:5-25).

Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth are descendants of Aaron, the first Jewish High Priest, and are described as “righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord” (Luke 1:6). As a priest, Zechariah served regularly at the temple, a responsibility he’s fulfilling when an angel suddenly appears to him.

The location of this angelic appearance does not happen by chance. Gabriel could have appeared to him at home, while he was working in the field, or during a long journey. However, God intentionally chose to reveal his plan to Zechariah while he is in the temple, at the altar. God intentionally brought his first Christmas announcement in the place of worship, alerting us that this is a story about worship.

ISRAEL’S WORSHIP PROBLEM

Israel had a long history of cluttered altars. The people had often abandoned the God who redeemed them and made them his own special people. Such a great beginning makes it all the more tragic when their story consistently turns towards rebellion, rejection, and idolatry. They regularly turned their back on God and literally cluttered their altars with idols and false gods (e.g. 2 Chron. 33:4-5). They habitually adulterated their worship and kept God at bay by filling their lives and altars with other things.

When Zechariah the priest entered the temple to burn incense, he was, essentially, leading the nation in worship (Luke 1:10) and representing them before God. Even though he is described as righteous and blameless, he belongs to a people who have constantly been mired in idolatry, confusion, and waywardness. They are turned away from God, in conflict with each other, ignorant of God’s ways, and walking in disobedience.

Israel’s worship problem is the context of the angel Gabriel’s announcement.

WE HAVE A WORSHIP PROBLEM, TOO

Like the Israelites of old, we too have a worship problem. And Jesus has come to solve it. Thus the angel Gabriel’s announcement to Zechariah, declaring the work that his future son, John the Baptist will accomplish:

“And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared” (Luke 1:16-17).

John’s job will be to go before Jesus and bring about a threefold turning. The first turning was repentance, turning “many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God,” away from the idols that clutter their altars. The second turning was reconciliation, turning “the hearts of fathers to their children.” When God makes people right with himself, he also does the work of making them right with one another. The third turning was transformation, turning “the disobedient to the wisdom of the just.”

The Bible regularly juxtaposes the wise and the foolish. The wise are just, righteous, and obedient, while the foolish are unjust, wicked, and disobedient. God is in the business of making foolish men wise, and disobedient men just (see Jer. 31:33-4; 32:36-41; Ezek. 36:26-27).

WHAT WE’RE PREPARING FOR

Ultimately, John’s job would be “to make ready for the Lord a people prepared” (Luke 1:17). But prepared for what?

Two connected passages give clarity on the purpose of this preparation as well as insight into the purposes of our own Advent preparations; that we are to be prepared to see God’s glory and respond in worship.

Prepared to see God’s glory. Isaiah lined out a job description for John the Baptist hundreds of years before his birth:

“A voice cries: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken’” (Is. 40:3-5).

The metaphor is that of a cluttered path—valleys, mountains, and the uneven, rough ground that marks the difficult paths of the world and of our lives. These are the paths we create on our own, attempting to walk them without God. It is a path for God, yet we are the ones who’ve cluttered it! John’s job was to be an earth-mover; to run a spiritual bulldozer over these self-made roads and level out a path upon which God himself would come to his people.

The path that John was to prepare (and that Advent mimics, in a way) was a path of welcome. It was the path of the King, upon which we are to roll out the red carpet in welcome. Advent is a time of preparation for welcoming the King!

The ultimate purpose of this leveling work is “for the glory of the Lord [to] be revealed and all flesh [to] see it together” (Is. 40:5). God is making it possible for us once again to clearly see His glory. In order for that to happen, the path has to be cleared. It has to be decluttered.

Prepared to respond in worship. When John is born, Zechariah’s mouth is opened for the first time in nine months, and he sings a song of praise to God. In it, he prophesies to his son, “And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins” (Luke 1:76-77). All this, Zechariah says, so that the people might “serve him [i.e., worship God] without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all our days” (Luke 1:74-75).

As a descendant of Aaron, John too was a priest. His would be preparatory in nature: cleaning house, decluttering, and removing obstacles so that nothing else would distract from what Israel was made for: to worship God.

So, what are we preparing for during this Advent season? We are preparing to worship.

ADVENT: A SEASON TO DECLUTTER

Advent is a season meant to prepare a people for the coming of the King. It’s a time of decluttering from all the things we’ve thrown into the path and onto the altar that bog down our worship, replaced Jesus in our affections, and distracted us from him.

Advent is a yearly rhythm of intentionally entering into practices that help us to declutter our spaces, calendars, wallets, minds, and hearts. It’s a time to intentionally get our house ready for the one who came as a baby. Decluttering is an act of hospitality, of rolling out the red carpet, of preparing, and of going all out in order to make room for and welcome the King.

Advent is a time for us to return to what this season—and our lives—are to be about: worship. Not just for Advent, but for always.

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Mike Phay serves as Lead Pastor at FBC Prineville (Oregon) and as a Staff Writer at Gospel-Centered Discipleship. He has been married to Keri for over 21 years, and they have five amazing kids. You can follow him on Twitter (@mikephay) or check out his blog.

Featured Book | A Guide for Advent: The Arrival of King Jesus

As the season of Advent comes into view, we wanted to invite our readers to pick up our resource, A Guide for Advent: The Arrival of King Jesus. With essays that will help you focus on the meaning and anticipation of the Advent season, this guide will help you walk closer to Christ as the day we celebrate his birth draws close. Enjoy this excerpt from our Executive Director, Jeremy Writebol, and pick up the ebook or paperback in time for the first Sunday of Advent, December 3.

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The Greatest Fear


What is the single greatest fear that most people have about the Advent season, especially Christmas Day? I doubt it has to do with finding the perfect gift. Nor does it seem like the inevitable holiday weight-gain would rank as the greatest fear. Debates over religion and politics at the dinner table might earn a higher rank but even those fights are nothing compared to a deeper fear of the soul.

I believe it to be the lack of presence. Not a lack of presents (or gifts) but a lack of presence. No one wants to be alone during this season. We sing songs about being home for Christmas. Many Christmas films riff on the theme of being separated from family and loved ones at Christmas. We cower at the thought of waking up to ourselves with no lit tree, no joyful laughter, and with nobody to share the day. Consider the very ghosts that haunted Scrooge in Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol, they haunted him with lonely Christmases.  Studies indicate that depression hits widows and widowers deepest at the holidays. I can almost guess that a full 98% of people reading this article would prefer to have someone, even if they didn’t really like them, to be with on Christmas over spending it with no one at all.

What is it about Advent that reveals this fear in almost all of us? If we look at the very nature of what it means we will find the very reason being physically alone during this season troubles so many. At its core it is more than just remembering the coming of God into our existence, Advent is about the actual presence of God in our existence. It’s the one season that reminds us that God is with us. So, when we consider a season that tells us God is with us and yet functionally experience it in loneliness a massive discord hits. The discord, for most, isn’t with God. It’s within ourselves. We should be experiencing presence. We should be with others and God should be with us.

Presence on the Way

Four hundred years is a long time to wait. The United States of America has barely existed for half of that time. It would be nearly impossible to understand the absence and silence from God for that amount of time. However, that is exactly where the people of Israel were. National culture and identity would go through an immense rewriting if it had been four hundred years since you had a prophetic word from the national center of worship activity. Certainly brief and dim glimpses of recovery and hope came and recharged everyone’s expectations but they were just that, brief and dim. Sure, they had the prophetic words of old to lean on. Isaiah did promise Emmanuel, even if that was seven hundred years ago.

Then, rumors started cropping up. Angelic visitations occurred. Barren old women conceived. Kings from the East traveled West. A nation immigrated within itself because of a census. A virgin was with child. Then, the rumors died down. Things went back to normal for another thirty years until a shabbily dressed man like Elijah began to speak for God in the wilderness. He was no respecter of persons and called kings, priests, and publicans to repent. A nation finally received a prophetic word: “The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world is present. God is with us. Emmanuel has come.”

Yes, Emmanuel, God with us. He was attested to be God by his words and works by doing things only God could do. God with us possessing authority to drive out sin, devils, and death. God with us doing justice, loving the outcast and the stranger. God with us dinning with the drunkards, the harlots, and the sinners. God with us clothed in the material flesh of our bodies. Emmanuel experienced the physical limitations, pains, and agonies of our condition. God with us bearing the wrath of God in our place for our offenses against God and taking our very own death-blow. God with us being laid in a tomb dead for three days, he, God with us, was miraculously raised to glorious new life again by the power of God–securing resurrection life for all who trust in him. God with us sent his eternal presence to indwell and empower us for lives of glory and mission. He hasn’t left us, in fact, God with us has come, became flesh, and lived in our very domain and gifted us his eternal presence so we would always be with him.

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Jeremy Writebol is the Executive Director of GCD. He is the husband of Stephanie and father of Allison and Ethan. He serves as the lead campus pastor of Woodside Bible Church in Plymouth, MI. He is also an author and contributor to several GCD Books including everPresent and That Word Above All Earthly Powers. He writes personally at jwritebol.net.

Embracing Christmas Again

No matter how much of a Grinch you are, most of us do not think Christmas is inherently evil. Ha! That is funny to write. That said, many of us might not like Christmas, slightly dread Christmas, or want Christmas to be over with already. Christmas has been hijacked. Black Friday, malls, online shopping, and family with the best of intentions have all hijacked Christmas. Instead of a time and season for us to reflect on the miracle of Jesus, we instead find ourselves running around like chickens with our heads cut off in a season controlled by busyness, consumerism, gluttony, spending, and a frantic circus of parading your family around from one event to the next where kids are trained not to be satisfied with one present or one candy cane but to quickly move on to the next present and the next candy cane and the next present and next present and next present as we train them to be greedy, selfish, and dissatisfied. Christmas has become a circus.

Let’s embrace Christmas again!

Let’s create traditions and goals to slow down and savor the wonder that is the Son of God coming in the flesh. Time for us to embrace the humility and simplicity of a God who was born in a small-town, in a barn, and in a feeding trough for livestock. A Savior and King who was homeless, carless, smartphone-less, and Amazon-less. What if his coming and his living held both principles and keys to not just surviving Christmas but thriving in Christmas? What if instead of Christmas leaving us with a materialism and people-pleasing hangover it left us refreshed and was used as a springboard for our faith in Jesus Christ?

That is why I am writing this. Below are a list of seven values and some practical ideas that my family is striving for. Feel free to borrow these ideas or create your own to help you best live out your values for this Christmas!

1. Keep the focus on Jesus.

We all have fun Christmas traditions. My family loves to watch Elf and Home Alone and walk through those crazy Christmas circle neighborhoods where ninety-nine out of 100 houses (there always seems to be that one dark house that is either Jehovah Witnesses or missed the memo that they live on candy cane lane) are insanely decked out with Christmas lights and inflatables.

These are all fun and valuable traditions but if they are only traditions we will wake up in January and realize we didn’t talk about, think about, pray to or enjoy Jesus for a whole month! The culture has replaced Jesus and we can easily do the same if we do not intentionally keep the focus on Jesus. We have to make it our goal to keep our focus on Jesus and on the wonder of the incarnation. We want to remember Jesus, reflect on Jesus, and celebrate Jesus while spending time with Jesus this and every Christmas season.

I want to share a few simple practices that can help us keep the focus on Jesus. The first is to celebrate Advent and have a daily reminder, short story, or key Bible verse that you read as a family that points us back to Jesus. Another is to make sure the Christmas story is read and celebrated on Christmas and/or Christmas Eve. Finally, listen to and sing Christmas songs during the Christmas season that are about Jesus and talk as a family about what these songs are really about and even compare them to Christmas songs that aren’t about Jesus and what message those proclaim as well.

2. Slowing down.

We must say “no” to some of our old traditions and some of the gift-giving and receiving to accomplish this huge value. Two practices can help us slow down to enjoy Jesus and family. First, take the week of Christmas off of work, hobbies, errands, and some of the normal routine to slow down and focus more on enjoying Jesus and people. Second, Christmas cards every other year to have more time to focus on Jesus.

3. Time with immediate family.

Christmas is a great time to spend with relatives, friends, and that one crazy uncle, but if we are not careful, we can miss out on having even a moment with our immediate family. Plan ahead and have time set aside for just our household to enjoy Jesus and one another.

4. Time with Church family.

For many, our relatives might not love Jesus, and there is something unique about enjoying this season with others who have trusted Jesus. Prioritize spending time with your church family on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Spend time in your church communities to celebrate evidences of God’s grace together and pray thanksgiving for all the gifts Jesus has given us.

5. Time for mission.

Christmas reminds us that Jesus left his home to invite us into a relationship with him. The Christmas story is a story of mission and the best way to honor this story is to live the story by inviting others into this story! Pray through who you can invite over for a meal on or around Christmas. Invite neighbors and friends to Christmas gatherings and events that share the good news of Jesus.

6. Time for charity.

Giving and receiving presents is nice, but often we need nothing more than giving to others who are in need. Giving and receiving gifts are not evil, but there is an opportunity to remember those who need the basics—food, water and clothes. Christmas is a time to worship our charitable God who gave us everything we need by choosing one or more charities to give to or serve alongside as a family. We can use this season to give to real needs and raise awareness within our household, church, and even extended family of great opportunities to give to!

7. Taming the Grandparents.

Grandparents are a gift and some of us are blessed to have generous and loving grandparents who love to bless (aka spoil the living daylight) our kids with presents and candy. Sometimes, they can be so excited about Christmas that they go overboard in the presents and candy category and give more than any kids could possibly know what to do with and can accidentally enforce that Christmas is only about getting.

It can be helpful to thank grandparents for their generosity but also encourage them to give each kid one small gift or a group gift or best an experience gift (e.g., movie tickets, children museum passes, etc.) rather than a million toys. If you are going to pull this “taming” off you will have to set this encouragement earlier in the year and regularly remind as it could be a bit of an uphill battle.

There you have it. Seven values to help us embrace Christmas again! Now many of these values make sense not just for Christmas but for all of life. And that is the point. Taking Christmas back means once again using it as a season to remind us of what is most important and leaving us refreshed and encouraged rather than it being a cyclone of consumerism leaving us with a busyness hangover. Let’s enjoy Jesus and his people this Christmas. Let’s slow down and say “no” to materialism and “yes” to a minimalist Jesus who came and lived humbly and simply and let’s look forward to his return!

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Jake Chambers is the husband to his beautiful bride Lindsey, and a daddy to Ezra, Roseanna, and Jaya. Jake is passionate about seeing the gospel both transform lives and create communities that love Jesus, the city, and the lost. He currently serves Red Door Church in San Diego through leading, preaching, equipping, and pastoring.

Hope is a good thing

In the movie Shawshank Redemption, Andy writes a letter to Red and includes the following remark, “Remember, Red. Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.”If I could respond to Andy, I would simply say, “Amen.” The reason, of course, is that hope truly is a good thing. Despite difficulties, hope is one of things that people everywhere hold onto, even if momentarily. Hoping admits frailty and attempts to look beyond the status quo, eagerly desiring and longing for something more. It’s good, yet it can be dangerous.

Grasping For Hope

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.” – Proverbs 13:12

For several hundreds years, Israel did not hear a word from the LORD. The same mouth that spoke all things into existence at creation, chose not to speak for a time. This time in redemptive history was cold, dark, and grimmer than the ominous silence before an impending tsunami. Israel had been exiled and only a few returned home. Things were not the same. Would God keep his covenant? Would God deliver them from Greek rule? Roman rule? Questions abound.... It’s within this context the Christmas story arrives.

Luke writes, “Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him” (Lk. 2:25, emphasis mine). Simeon kept the covenant by faith, hence Luke’s description in Luke 2:25. Here was a man who was waiting—expecting, hoping, and looking forward to Israel receiving comfort. Why was Israel in need of comfort? Grief. Pain. Frustration. Uncertainty. They lacked hope. That was status quo in Israel when the Christ was born.

Charles Wesley wrote of this in 1744 with the hymn, Come Thou Long-Expected Jesus:

Come, Thou long-expected Jesus, born to set Thy people free; From our fears and sins release us; let us find our rest in Thee. Israel’s strength and consolation, hope of all the earth Thou art; Dear desire of every nation, joy of every longing heart. Born Thy people to deliver, born a child, and yet a King, Born to reign in us forever, now Thy gracious kingdom bring. By Thine of eternal Spirit rule in all our hearts alone; By Thine own sufficient merit, raise us to Thy glorious throne.

Longing, expectation, and hope of the kingdom—but where and when would it come? Anointed by the Holy Spirit, Simeon was granted divine revelation: “It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ” (Lk. 2:26). Simeon was promised that he would in fact see the messiah. Finally! Hope had dawned and, though the sunshine seemed dim, the brightness would come in the promised messiah.

Simeon followed the revelation and the leading of the Spirit and went to the temple where he met Joseph and Mary by divine appointment. Simeon holds the child then blesses God. In a fit of divine elation, Simeon thanks God for the fruition of the promise: He has seen God’s salvation. And that salvation will be a light to the Gentiles as well as the Jews.

Simeon grasped for hope and, in God’s wise counsel, this hope was held in his very own hands. The messiah would bring light, truth, salvation, and hope to all nations (Is. 42:6; 49:6; 60:1-3).

The Story Progresses

Fast forward to the end of Luke’s Gospel account. Jesus was betrayed, murdered, buried, and raised. Talk about a journey of hope! This promised messiah stared death in the face, brutally falling under the sword of divine wrath. I suspect if Simeon were present at the execution of Jesus, he might have asked the following questions: “Was this the same man I held in my arms? The one the Spirit promised would be messiah? Now that he is dead, how could he possible be the consolation of Israel?”

Those who watched Jesus being crucified could have benefited from this Psalm, “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation” (Ps. 42:5).

Yet Christ was raised! Death couldn’t keep him for long; no, Jesus walked out of the tomb leaving death in the grave. “Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the LORD his God,” says the Psalmist (Ps. 146:5). Jesus was blessed! God was his hope. Jesus saw his vindication on the other side of the cross.

Jesus then appears to a couple of his disciples on the road to Emmaus (Lk. 24). These disciples were walking along discussing among themselves the apparent failure of Jesus to bring the promised consolation to Israel. They say as much, “But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel” (Lk. 24:21). Did you catch that? We had hoped.

Tension. Simeon was told that Jesus was the hope that was coming to the world to bring redemption. Yet it seemed as if Jesus failed. He died! Messiah’s don’t just die! Hope was already waning when Jesus was arrested and now it has all but dwindled.

Little do the disciples know that Jesus rose from the dead, so he explained that the entire Bible is about him (Lk. 24:27). After that, they share a meal, their eyes are opened, and they know it’s him. He immediately disappears from their presence. After admitting an odd case of divine heart-burn (Lk. 24:32), they spread the news: “Hope is here! Hope has come! Our consolation is truly here!” The gospel announcement marches forward.

Living In-Between

The consolation that Simeon and the disciples were desperate for is still the same consolation we long for. The kingdom of God was launched in the person and work of Christ. This kingdom is not yet here in its fullest expression. Christ has been enthroned and his crown rights should be acknowledged by all nations, but not all nations have been discipled. The hope that surrounds Jesus’ first coming propels the church’s mission forward, knowing that the future hope we have is guaranteed by the resurrection of Christ.

We can learn much from the first advent as we peer into the future, longing for the second. Jeremiah Burroughs comments, “Faith and hope purge and work a suitableness in the soul to the things believed and hoped for.”

The act of faith (trusting without seeing) coupled with hope (longing and expectation) shape and mold the soul in such a way as to align one’s heart with what is envisioned. In other words, whatever our hope is our lives are to be lived in such a way as to strive for it. The soul is built to desire—to desire is to hope and to hope is to desire. So what does Christian hope look like?

Christian hope is quiet and waits patiently. It cries out with the Psalmist, “I waited patiently for the LORD; he inclined to me and heard my cry” (Ps. 40:1). Christian hope is also confident expectation. Sure, we wait patiently and quietly, but we also look forward confident in God to be faithful to his promises. To have confident expectation is to yearn for something. We “put out our necks” to see when God will come.

We live in-between.

To live in between the advents of messiah is to look back on what God has done with excitement and look forward to what God will do with eagerness. We hope in what is to come because we see what God has already done. Living in between the advent pushes future hope deep into the soul because God has already proven himself faithful. Hope is only as good as the presupposed promise and that promise comes from the God of all true and better promises.

Real, Robust Resurrection Hope

We can hope with full confidence because Jesus is alive. The down payment of the firstfruits of the resurrection in Christ is a done deal. Christ has died. Christ is risen. The objective reality of the empty tomb is the fuel that drives the engine of hope. Sure, we don’t see the entire picture: “For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees?” (Rom. 8:24). But we don’t have to. The future belongs to God and those to whom he chooses to give it. But that doesn’t undermine our hope. It drives it.

What Christians hold on to during Advent is not fuzzy feelings of the past. We don’t celebrate Advent because God did something real nice once before. We take time to celebrate Christ’s coming because of a real, robust resurrection hope. The tomb is empty. The gospel announcement has been shouted. Christ has come, yet he will come again. Hope is definitely a good thing. Yes, it is dangerous because we can hope in things that will disappoint. That’s reality when living in the in-between. But resurrection power has come and will come again. Is there a surer or greater hope?

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Rev. Jason M. Garwood (M.Div., Th.D.) serves as Lead Pastor of Colwood Church in Caro, MI and author of Be Holy and The Fight for Joy. Jason and his wife Mary have three children, Elijah, Avery and Nathan. He blogs at www.jasongarwood.com. Connect with him on Twitter: @jasongarwood.

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Editor: In advent, there’s a natural sense of restlessness in our world which only Jesus’ presence can bring peace and resolution to. Our desire is to drive our hope toward the incarnate Savior during this season. Glory to God in the highest and peace to his people on earth.

• The Arrival: Prince of Peace by Mathew B. Sims
• Advent Calls Us to Stay Awake by Freddy Williams and David Comstock
• And He Called His Name Jesus by Whitney Woollard
• Advent Restores a Song for the Suffering by Chelsea Vaughn
• A Banquet Among Enemies by Sean Nolan

A Banquet Among Enemies

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. – Psalm 23:5

Hope, joy, peace, and love are probably not the first words that come to your mind when you think of refugees. You've likely seen the images of men, women, and children crammed into little rubber boats attempting to flee the blood thirst of ISIS. Many of them, to their horror, land on foreign soil only to be turned away. They are not welcome.

Joseph and the nine-months pregnant Mary were similarly turned away when they asked for refuge at an inn in Bethlehem. So the child-king and Savior of the world was born, not in a palace, not even in a Motel 6, but an animal stable and placed in a feeding trough as a makeshift crib.

God is so often nearest to those who are most desperate.He was there in the stable with the postpartum Mary, although just a babe. Those in extreme situations recognize more quickly their need for divine assistance while affluence and material comfort blind many of us. But make no mistake; we are all in need of God's rescue. An unknown author captured this in the opening lines of a seventh-century Advent hymn:

Creator of the stars of night, Thy people's everlasting light, Jesus, Redeemer, save us all, And hear Thy servants when they call. – Creator of the Stars of Night, trans. John M. Neale

His prayer was not for Jesus to save only the poor, or only the rich, but to save us all. We all suffer under the weight of the Fall and sin's deadly consequences. You may have seen the images of children beheaded at the hands of ISIS and felt the twist in your gut at the severe injustice. If you experienced feelings of hatred and rage, you were not alone.

Many are migrating away from their homeland to escape the wrath of ISIS so their children will not end up in a photograph passed around social media to stoke the sympathy of the West. God is not unfamiliar with the threat. Jesus was not yet two years old when his mother and adoptive father had to flee Bethlehem to escape a similar fate. Herod, the dictator-king of Judea, took the life of every small boy in the area (Matt. 2:13-18). He takes this rough measure to secure his self-worship and prevent a child-savior from threatening his rule. The hymn continues:

Thou, grieving that the ancient curse Should doom to death a universe, Hast found the medicine, full of grace, To save and heal a ruined race.

Could you imagine being one of the families who lost their son at the hands of Herod? Some in Iraq and Syria don't have to imagine; it’s their reality. The curse is real, and the death it brings permeates our entire universe. If you've wondered where God is in the midst of the chaos, you are not alone.

The child who escaped the sword of Herod was later crucified and disfigured at the hands of sinful men. A gruesome act of man that doubled as God's most glorious act of rescue, for Jesus laid his life down of his own accord (Jn. 10:18). He will soon return for his bride. His grace will save and heal our ruined human race.

The arrival of the child, in the unassuming stable, brought hope, joy, peace, and love.

Thou cam'st, the Bridegroom of the bride, As drew the world to evening-tide; Proceeding from a virgin shrine, The spotless Victim all divine.

Our consciences, at their best moments, are outraged at the heinous acts of ISIS. At their worst, they excuse us for our own heinous thoughts and deeds. While it feels difficult to identify with ISIS, we have more in common with them than we do with Jesus. We have the blood of Jesus, the only perfect one, on our hands. It was our sin that sent him to the cross. He would undergo the worst injustice humanity has ever seen. That child virgin-born would never experience guilt from his own thoughts or actions, for they were perfect always. But he became one of us and experienced a separation from the Father, all to rescue those who forsook him.

At Whose dread Name, majestic now, All knees must bend, all hearts must bow; And things celestial Thee shall own, And things terrestrial, Lord alone.

That baby in a stable was peaceful and adorable. But when he returns a second time the ledger will be made right. Yes, those who punish his children will someday recognize his terrible majesty and might. No one will stand on that day—all will bow, things in heaven and on earth.

We like this—God returning to execute justice—so long as we are not on the receiving end. If you've experienced God's grace and mercy in the person of Christ, the debt you owe—the cosmic consequence of your sin—has been paid. But do you long for those exacting vengeance in the name of Allah to experience the same grace?

Someday, they will rightly see the divine power and glory of Christ. In obedience to Christ, we should be praying that day occurs before judgment, the terrible day when:

O Thou Whose coming is with dread To judge and doom the quick and dead, Preserve us, while we dwell below, From every insult of the foe.

Those deplorable actions of Herod and ISIS, they are but the last death throes of the one who came to kill and destroy (Jn. 10:10). That babe in the manger has crushed his head, and while his heart still beats, he is as good as dead.

Jesus has not yet returned to balance the scales of justice, so hope is alive for those within the ranks of ISIS (and it wouldn’t be the first time he’s converted a terrorist for his glory Acts 8).

While we dwell below we may not be protected from all the Enemy's blows, but we do rest firmly in the hand of the Savior and King. Our hope is in the one to which we sing:

To God the Father, God the Son, And God the Spirit, Three in One, Laud, honor, might, and glory be From age to age eternally.

In him, we find our hope, despite the injustice in this world. In him, we find our joy, despite the violence that tries to rob us. In him, we find peace, despite those that insist on war. And in him, we know love. That’s why we can love our enemies because Jesus died for us when we were his enemies, and he now sends his Spirit to dwell within us.

As we reflect on his first advent, we see the creator of the world erupting into human history, taking on flesh, and dying for us as a substitute. His first advent has shown us that nothing is impossible with God. We wait, patiently, but expectantly for his second advent. We say with the Apostle Paul:

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. – Romans 8:31-39

Paul contrasts the love of God in Christ against the backdrop of almost every possible human suffering we could face. The words are timeless as we head into Advent. If our heart is never heavy due to the pain of the world, we are not paying attention. But if our heart is faint because of these woes, we have not reflected enough on the gospel’s victory. Paul, commenting on his own trials, referred to himself as "sorrowful, yet always rejoicing" (2 Cor. 6:10). This same attitude should mark us as we prepare our hearts for Advent.

Some head into this season with very little. They long for something simple and material: a hot meal, a warm bed. Thoughts of hope, joy, peace, and love are far from them. But God has given up his son for us all; will he not then give us these intangible desires? Some have lost their children; God knows what it’s like to watch a child die. Multitudes of people are afraid of God's condemnation due to their sin; he justifies. Not because of what we've done, but because of what Christ did. The hearts of many are so busy they do not know how to approach God and feel ill prepared for this season; Jesus is interceding for them. In some places radical Islamists may separate people's heads from their bodies; they cannot separate a Christian from the love of God. God is for us. God is with us. This is the meaning of Jesus' name, Immanuel. Through him, we are more than conquerors.

It’s possible for an army to win a war but suffer tremendous loss of lives. Conquering comes, usually, at a great cost. Not so with those who trust Christ. While everything in this world may be taken from us, our lives rest solely with Christ who will raise them up again. He's already demonstrated that by raising up his own.

Jesus Christ is our hope (1 Tim. 1:1) and he has overcome the world that stands against us (Jn. 16:33). He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief (Is. 53:3), so that we could have joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom. 14:17). He will soon return with a sword coming out of his mouth to silence his enemies (Rev. 19:5), but for those who trust in him he is our peace (Eph. 2:14). The people of God have a multitude of enemies standing against them, but the hope of spiritual Israel is in the God who is love (1 Jn. 4:8).

Hope, joy, peace, and love. The themes may seem foggy. The words intangible. But when we cast our gaze upon Jesus these words take on flesh as he did (Jn. 1:14).

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Sean Nolan (B.S. and M.A., Summit University) is the Family Life Pastor at Christ Fellowship Church in Fallston, MD. Prior to that he served at Terra Nova Church in Troy, NY for seven years and taught Hermeneutics to ninth and tenth graders. He is married to Hannah and is about to be a father for the second time. He occasionally blogs at Hardcore Grace.

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Editor: In advent, there’s a natural sense of restlessness in our world which only Jesus’ presence can bring peace and resolution to. Our desire is to drive our hope toward the incarnate Savior during this season. Glory to God in the highest and peace to his people on earth.

• The Arrival: Prince of Peace by Mathew B. Sims
• Advent Calls Us to Stay Awake by Freddy Williams and David Comstock
• And He Called His Name Jesus by Whitney Woollard
• Advent Restores a Song for the Suffering by Chelsea Vaughn

Incarnation in the City

If we do not understand the weight of the miracle of the incarnation of Christ, it’s because we do not understand the weight of the holiness of God. The incarnation is shocking. It is outrageous to think that an infinite and holy God would voluntarily become finite to live with unholy sinners. In fact, the incarnation is so appalling that it is the thing that separates Christianity from Islam and Judaism. The Jerusalem Talmud says, “If man claims to be God, he is a liar” (Ta’anit 2:1), while the Quran says, “Allah begets not and was not begotten” (Sura al-Ikhlas 112). Jews and Muslims understand how ludicrous it is to think that a holy God would humiliate himself by becoming human.

The Dreadful Holiness of God

The holiness of God is fearful. But if we want to know God and ourselves, we must begin by seeing how much God loves his holiness and cherishes his purity. If we do not start here, the gospel will become cheap to us. As A.W. Tozer wrote in The Knowledge of the Holy,

“Unless the weight of the burden is felt, the gospel can mean nothing to man; and until he sees a vision of God high and lifted up, there will be no woe and no burden. Low views of God destroy the gospel for all who hold them.”

Under the old covenant, people responded to the holiness of God with awe and reverence. When Moses met the Lord, he “hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God” (Ex 3:6). Then, years later, when he begged to see God’s glory, God said, “You cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live” (Ex 33:20). When the ark of the Lord was being brought back to Israel, some men looked inside of it and, as a result, the Lord struck down fifty thousand men. The people despaired, “Who is able to stand before the Lord, this holy God?” (1 Sam. 6:20). When David was bringing the ark to Jerusalem, one man merely touched it, and God struck him down immediately, “And David was afraid of the Lord that day, and he said, ‘How can the ark of the Lord come to me?’” (2 Sam. 6:9). The nearer Ezekiel approached the throne of the Lord, the less sure his words became: “Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And when I saw it, I fell on my face” (Ez 1:28).

Not only did people tremble at his holiness, the Lord himself frequently spoke about it. Through Isaiah, he said, “Who has measured the Spirit of the Lord, or what man shows him his counsel … All the nations are as nothing before him, they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness” (Is 40:13, 17). When Job finished calling his character into question, the Lord answered from the whirlwind, “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? . . . Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?” (Job 38:2, 4).

The Incarnation of that Dreadful Holiness

Jesus embodies the holiness of God because he is God and has been with God from the beginning (Jn 1:1-2). This means that, when God acted under the old covenant, Jesus—as part of the Godhead—was right there with him. This is why the incarnation is a shocking miracle. In Christ, God has effected self-disclosure. Our holy God, who told Moses, “for man shall not see me and live,” became incarnate. People saw him and lived.

Our holy God, who struck down a man for touching the ark and another fifty thousand for looking inside of it, became incarnate. People spit upon him and lived. Our holy God, whose throne was so magnificent that Ezekiel failed to find words to describe it, became incarnate. He was born as a baby in a manger, not a throne. Our holy God, who demanded blood sacrifices to atone for sin, became incarnate. He allowed himself to be butchered on a cross.

Our holy God, who asked Job, “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?” became incarnate. He was born in an insignificant little town and worked as a mere carpenter in Nazareth.

Incarnation in Our Cities

What does the incarnation mean for us today?

First, the incarnation means that we live in the world, but not of it

As Jesus prayed for his disciples, “I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world” (Jn 17:15). In other words, we pursue holy lives of obedience and sacrifice even as we engage in our cities.

Second, the incarnation means that we seek opportunities to deny ourselves

Self-denial is not a popular topic in our culture, but it is the starting point for Christian growth in the mind of Christ. When Jesus became incarnate, he voluntarily denied himself the privileges of being God in order to be mocked and killed (Phil. 2:8). He did this because he longed to redeem us and knew that, in order to accomplish our salvation, the demands of his holiness had to be met. We could not meet them, so he met them for us. We, in turn, are to have the same mind, “do[ing] nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count[ing] others more significant than [our]selves” (Phil. 3:3). We deny ourselves to love others.

Third, the incarnation means that we do not love money

God is the richest being in the universe. Everything is made by him, through him and for him. Yet as he looked upon the world and decided into what family he would come, he chose the poorest of the poor. When Mary and Joseph went to the temple after the birth of Jesus, Luke records, “And when the time came for their purification according to the Law of Moses, they brought [Jesus] up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord. . . and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the Law of the Lord, ‘a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons’” (Lk 2:22-24). Under the Law, the regular sacrifice was a lamb, but there was a provision for poor mothers: “If she cannot afford a lamb, then she shall take two turtledoves or two pigeons” (Lv 12:8). This is what Mary brought. Jesus, who had all the riches of the world at his disposal, chose to be incarnate into a family that could not even afford a regular sacrifice. Let us not love riches.

Fourth, the incarnation means that we should not overvalue physical beauty

Our culture loves external appearances, but the incarnate Christ chose to come as someone who had no physical beauty or majesty. He is the most glorious person who has ever lived, but we did not recognize his glory. Thousands saw him with their eyes, but they saw nothing with their hearts. We, in turn, must look for beauty in our world with the eyes of our heart. What will we see when we look at the world this way? We will see that, today, the Lord lives in the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, and the prisoner. As Jesus taught, when we care for such people, we do this unto him.

Finally, the incarnation means that God is for us

Paul was not merely referring to the crucifixion when he wrote, “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Rom. 8:31-32). He was also referring to the incarnation, when Jesus left the side of the Father to become man and accomplish our salvation. The incarnation means that God is for us. Jesus left the Godhead and all the privileges thereof to die. He lived a humiliating and self-denying life to bring us to God, where there are pleasures forevermore (Ps 16:11). He veiled his awful and fearful holiness so that we could touch him, see him, know him, and love him. No longer does he say, “No man can see my face and live.” Today, he says, “See my face and be satisfied” (Ps 17:15).

When we live in light of the incarnation of Christ, our lives will be shocking to others. Although we are sons and daughters of the King, we must humiliate ourselves by serving others. All things may be permissible, but we will deny ourselves certain things or activities so that we can grow in our love for God and others. We will earn money, but we will strategize how to give it away for the sake of the kingdom. Living in a physical world, we will spend more effort on cultivating our inner beauty than our outer beauty. We will trust in the promises of God more than our circumstances because we know he is for us. When we live like this, people will think we are ludicrous. They will find our choices shocking. Yet we will point to the miracle of the incarnation of Christ. Our lives will testify to the great news of Advent. That news is this: Christ has come, God is with us.

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Bethany L. Jenkins is the Director of The Gospel Coalition’s Every Square Inch, the Director of Vocational & Career Development at The King’s College, and the Founder of The Park Forum. She previously worked on Wall Street and on Capitol Hill. She received her JD from Columbia Law School and attends Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, where she is a current CFW Fellow and a former Gotham Fellow through the Center for Faith & Work. You can follow her on Twitter.

Advent Restores a Song for the Suffering

Can you count how many times you have sung the popular Christmas hymn, "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel"? I can’t, but what is sad is that I often sing the words without meditating on them. It wasn’t until this year that the correlation of Christ’s name and singing these words weighed on my heart. My favorite is the last stanza, which says,

Oh, come, Desire of nations, bind In one the hearts of all mankind; Oh, bid our sad divisions cease, And be yourself our King of Peace. Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel Shall come to you, O Israel!

Emmanuel means God with us, so the words we sing don’t just offer a Christmas warmth and ring, but a true declaration that Christ’s coming will fulfill the redemption of the world. Yes, Jesus came to the earth and was born as a baby. That’s what our Christian culture often celebrates during Christmas, but I want to sing something more this year. Something that speaks to the mission we have because of his presence.

Emmanuel.

God with us.

He is with us already, he is with us still, and he is with us forever. I want to focus on the word “us,” which refers to the collective body of believers who rejoice together in this forever presence. In my favorite compilation of letters from Bonhoeffer, he explains this concept beautifully, “With God there is joy, and from him it comes down and seizes spirit, soul, and body. And where this joy has seized a person, it reaches out around itself, it pulls others along, it bursts through closed doors.”[1]

There is much to be celebrated during Christmas, but there is also something that we seem to miss. We do well to celebrate Christ in the manger—a humble servant coming to earth to bring light and joy. This Christmas cheer is the classic rejoicing during this time of year. We sing Christmas music, we share laughter with family, and we even shout out that “Jesus is the reason for the season!” However, a deep pain and suffering falls silent to the masses during the holidays. We take in so much that the silence of the world falls away. I only hear the ringing bell from the Salvation Army on my brief walk into the mall and even that delivers a pleasant sound to my ears. The suffering, lonely, and lost hear a different kind of ringing that’s typically not hope, rejoicing, or a bell. It’s an enclosing silence.

The silence isn’t filled by watching a crowded world celebrate a commercialized holiday. The celebration of hope and joy don’t make sense to those without, it only reminds them of their lacking.We need help remembering beyond this, that Christ came to restore a song to the suffering and silent. He came to embody the promise of an eternal and everlasting hope to mankind as a whole.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel Shall come to you, O Israel!

See, we often don’t celebrate the greatest gift we have in his presence. The gift of harmony.

Emmanuel is more than a Christmas carol. It’s a song that sings of a name that has the power to gather the nations. And a name that declares the presence of God and the true need for Christ. As individual chords, we don’t produce the most pleasant sound. That’s because we represent only a single chord progression, but harmony is the sound of peace and unity. We can’t produce this without each other.

Oh, come, Desire of nations, bind In one the hearts of all mankind; Oh, bid our sad divisions cease, And be yourself our King of Peace.

This message is not new to your ears. I’m sure you will hear it many times. Our mission more than just feeling convicted and volunteering somewhere once. Instead, ask yourself: How does God with me transform my everyday life and those around me?

Read Luke 1. This story counsels us in three ways. First, the angel Gabriel appeared to Elizabeth before Mary, the mother of Jesus. Second, Mary was afraid, but she listened to the angel’s words from God and accepted them at face value. Third, Mary sung a song of praise. Again, what does this story look like translated into your life?

1. Who is your person of peace?

This person would be much like Elizabeth was for Mary, they can exhort and counsel you with their faith. Seek out a person who is in a different denomination or from a different ethnic culture but that lives in peace and models community well.

2. Define what you fear about facing your mission.

When you are well acquainted with your barriers, share them with God and ask for guidance. Remember his name, Emmanuel—he is with you as you go (Matt. 28:18-20).

3. How can you share your story of Emmanuel as God with us in your community?

Read Mary’s song again and study the story that is told. She shares of the counsel, guidance, and faithfulness of God. She said yes to God, and because of this obedience, we have Emmanuel. Use this as encouragement to share your own story with people who have not yet experienced the peace and presence of God. Doing so will cultivate and make great the name of Emmanuel in your community.

“Because of the tender mercy of our God,     whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,     to guide our feet into the way of peace.” - Luke 1:78-79

May we be a Church that does more than sing Christmas carols on Sunday. May we be a Church that invites and disciples others to sing of the same Savior. Different chords, but one song, a song that only sounds pleasing when sung together. This song declares our collective need for a Savior. It has the power to bid our sad divisions cease. Together, his church sings and begs for his return. We beckon him King of Peace!

1. Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, and Jana Riess. God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas. Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 2010. Print.

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Chelsea Vaughn (@chelsea725) has served a ministry she helped start in the DFW Metroplex since she graduated from college. She received her undergraduate degree at Dallas Baptist University in Communication Theory. She does freelance writing, editing, and speaking for various organizations and non-profits. She hopes to spend her life using her gift for communication to reach culture and communities with the love of Jesus.

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Editor: In advent, there’s a natural sense of restlessness in our world which only Jesus’ presence can bring peace and resolution to. Our desire is to drive our hope toward the incarnate Savior during this season. Glory to God in the highest and peace to his people on earth.

• The Arrival: Prince of Peace by Mathew B. Sims
• Advent Calls Us to Stay Awake by Freddy Williams and David Comstock
• And He Called His Name Jesus by Whitney Woollard

And He Called His Name Jesus

Jesus was born during the late Second Temple Period, a period charged with messianic expectation. For hundreds of years Second Temple Jews suffered beneath the foreign rule of one pagan empire after another. This instability energized the hopes of God’s people for deliverance and vindication. “Where is Messiah?” was the cry of every good Jew. They longed for Yahweh to deliver them from Roman rule by the hand of his Messiah just as he delivered Israel from Egyptian oppression in the days long ago. They were a people marked by the expectation that their God, the one true God, would intervene into human history, defeat their enemies, and reestablish David’s throne. Messianic expectation was expressed in the naming of baby boys with one of the more common Jewish names of the first century—Jesus. It’s the Greek form of the Old Testament name Joshua, meaning “Yahweh is salvation” (also “Savior” or “God saves”). It was a constant reminder that God would one day send a Savior to set his people free.

Imagine you’re a weary Jew in the first century. You’ve lived under the thumb of pagan rule your entire life. Your days are overshadowed by Roman oppression. You’re impoverished because of injustice. You walk through the streets of Jerusalem with the nagging sense that God has forgotten his people… he’s forgotten you. You’re losing hope with each breath. Suddenly you hear the faint call of a mother beckoning her son Jesus in for dinner. You pause, remembering afresh “Yahweh is salvation.” You close your eyes and breathe in a deep sigh of relief. One day Yahweh would indeed send his Messiah to save his people—of that you are sure.

Into this cultural context Matthew writes,

“Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us). When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus.

A Special Boy With A Special Mission

Jesus’ name may have been common but there was nothing common about Jesus of Nazareth. From his miraculous conception to his messianic mission, this little boy was altogether different. He was conceived from the Spirit (1:18, 20); he was born to save God’s people from their sins (1:21); he was the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy (1:22-23); and he was Immanuel, “God with us” (1:23). He wasn’t just another Jewish boy symbolically named for God’s salvation; he was God’s salvation. This could only mean one thing—the advent of Israel’s long-awaited deliverer was upon them!

Unfortunately, the deliverance Jesus brought wasn’t the deliverance expected. He didn’t come to overthrow the Roman Empire thereby rescuing Israel from external tyranny and setting them free (in the expected sense). He did come to save, but the ironical twist was that he came to save them from themselves! He came to set humanity free from the internal slavery of sin and brokenness. His messianic mission was to defeat Satan, sin, and death through his own death on the cross so that all who trust in him might be set free from sin. R.T. France further clarifies Jesus’ mission:

“His ministry will begin in the context of a call to repentance from sin (3:2, 6; 4:17)…he will also assert his ‘authority on earth to forgive sins’ (9:6). His mission will culminate in his death ‘as a ransom for many’ (20:28), ‘for the forgiveness of sins’ (26:28). [The point is… t]his son of David will not conform to the priorities of popular messianic expectation.”[1]

Many rejected Jesus (and continue to reject him today) because they failed to grasp that their deepest problem was the human heart. But the human heart has always been the problem. Israel, of all people, should have known this! They were the prototype of darkened hearts leading to personal enslavement. After being set free from slavery in Egypt, they enslaved themselves spiritually in their idolatry and worldly passions.

Biblical history testifies again and again to the fact that they didn’t need a national liberator; they needed a heart liberator. Isn’t this the need of all humanity? We need our hearts set free from sin so that we might run in the path of God’s commands (Ps. 119:32). And the only final cure for the human heart is bound up in the person and work of Christ—a special boy with a special mission.

Your Life Hinges On This Boy’s Name & Identity

Matthew writes his birth narrative in such a way as to invite thoughtful reflection on who this liberator is and what he came to do. The name Jesus reveals what he does—saves people from sin. While the title Immanuel reveals who he is—God with us. Your entire life hinges upon the implications of Jesus’ name and identity.

1. Through Jesus you experience God’s salvation

Christmas typically conjures up ideas of magical holiday moments and feel-good Hallmark movies. The season dances around the idea of salvation—someone saves Christmas, someone saves old Scrooge, someone saves the Grinch—but all too often the true salvation story is missed. The most “magical” news of all is that in Christ God has saved us from sin and death!

The gospel tells us that we were dead in our trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:1-2) and children of wrath (Eph. 2:3). We didn’t do or say bad things occasionally; we were enemies of God (Rom. 5:10), alienated and hostile in mind (Col. 1:21). Every single one of us stood condemned under God’s righteous judgments and there was nothing we could do to work our way out of this death sentence (Rom. 3:10-20).

However, this is good news of great joy because God intervened into human history in the form of a little baby boy named Jesus and promised to “save his people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21). He did what you and I were impotent to do—he made us alive together with Christ (Eph. 2:5). He put forth the perfect spotless Lamb, Jesus Christ, as the propitiation for our sin so that we could be justified by faith in him (Rom. 5:1). We have complete forgiveness and cleansing of sin by the blood of Jesus!

I’ve been a believer for thirteen years now and every Advent season I’m reminded afresh that “God saves” and he has done so through the coming of his Son Jesus. Jesus didn’t come to condemn “dirty sinners”; he came to bring life to the dead, healing to the broken, and hope to the downtrodden. He came to save messed up people like you and me. If you repent of sin and place your trust in Jesus, he delights to take away your sin and cleanse you from all unrighteousness. After all, Jesus was literally born to save people from their sins. It’s what he does!

2. Through Immanuel you experience God’s presence

The title “Immanuel” refers to Jesus’ deity (he is God) while simultaneously conveying his nearness to mankind (he is with us). The eternal Logos “became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (Jn. 1:14). In Christ, God condescended to man; he came to us as one of us so that we might know him and be known by him.

The fact that Jesus is Immanuel comforts during the holidays. Since God has come to you, you know you can come to him. You can come to him in your loneliness and fear and brokenness. December can be a bitter month for many as they find themselves alone or abandoned. I’ll never forget the first Christmas after my parents split. Long December by the Counting Crows was inescapably popular and Illinois seemed particularly gray (as if it wasn’t already gray enough!). Over the holidays we were “shipped” back and forth between houses as Adam Duritz slowly cooed me into depression. Almost twenty years later I still remember the profound loneliness I felt that Christmas. I was certain I would never feel comfort or peace again.

When I met Jesus, I happened upon a most beautiful truth—through my union with him God was with me. The Spirit of Christ took up residence in my heart and sealed me with his presence; thus I was never truly alone. God was with me during seasons of isolation and loneliness; he was with me in great disappointment; he was even with me during lonely Christmases.

Take comfort in the fact that Jesus is Immanuel; he is God with you.He is with you to comfort you but also to send you out to comfort others. Notice that Matthew bookends his Gospel with the promise of God’s presence. When Jesus came to earth he came as Immanuel, the manifestation of God’s presence with the power to save. When Jesus left the earth he promised this same enduring presence to all future disciples as he gave them the Great Commission. Immanuel promises to be with his disciples in every age to encourage, equip, and empower them to make disciples of all nations.

In this way Advent is missional. It reminds us that God sought us out and came to us in the incarnation. He brought us eternal comfort in the person and work of Christ. We’ve been promised that he is with us always, even to the end of the age (Matt. 28:20). Through his indwelling Spirit we are to seek out the lost and take that same message of God’s reconciling presence through Christ to the nations.

Who has God laid on your heart this season? Who needs to be comforted with the very comfort you’ve received in Christ? Christmas provides ample opportunities for sharing the gospel with others. Be bold in your witness knowing that God’s presence will empower you as you speak life, peace, and joy to those around you.

Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus

This Advent season create moments to stand in awe of Jesus, the one born to set God’s people free. Rejoice in him, the one who delivered you from the suffocating grip of sin and death. Take heart, your sins have been forgiven! Could there be a greater gift?

And, in the midst of all the Christmas chaos, find rest in Immanuel. God is with you—with you to comfort you in loneliness and with you to encourage you on mission. Worship him for his first advent and look forward in anticipation to his second coming. May you see past the consumerist frenzy long enough to cry out “Come, Thou long expected Jesus!”

Come, Thou long expected Jesus Born to set Thy people free; From our fears and sins release us, Let us find our rest in Thee.

Israel’s Strength and Consolation, Hope of all the earth Thou art; Dear Desire of every nation, Joy of every longing heart.

Born Thy people to deliver, Born a child and yet a King, Born to reign in us forever, Now Thy gracious kingdom bring.

By Thine own eternal Spirit Rule in all our hearts alone; By Thine all sufficient merit, Raise us to Thy glorious throne.

[1] France, R.T. The Gospel of Matthew. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2007. Print.

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Whitney Woollard has served in ministry alongside her husband Neal for over six years. She holds an undergraduate degree in Biblical Studies from Moody Bible Institute and just finished her Master of Arts in Biblical and Theological Studies from Western Seminary. She is passionate about equipping disciples to read and study God’s Word well resulting in maturing affections for Jesus and his gospel message. Neal and Whitney currently live in Portland, OR where they love serving the local church. Follow her on Twitter @whitneywoollard.

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Editor: In advent, there’s a natural sense of restlessness in our world which only Jesus’ presence can bring peace and resolution to. Our desire is to drive our hope toward the incarnate Savior during this season. Glory to God in the highest and peace to his people on earth.

• The Arrival: Prince of Peace by Mathew B. Sims
• Advent Calls Us to Stay Awake by Freddy Williams and David Comstock

Advent Calls Us to Stay Awake

The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever. Psalm 23

From the opening pages of the scriptures, from the creation narrative, God the Creator has been revealing who He is. It’s mind-blowing to think that we can actually know God, yet it’s fascinating to ponder that we can never exhaust the bottomless ocean of His character and nature. In every nook and cranny of this world, God is exposing who He is and telling His story. From the unknown depths of the oceans to the peak of Everest, from the sheer magnitude of the universe beyond us to the complexity of the universe within us, from the miracle of birth to the burden of death, amongst fauna and flora, He is telling His story. His fingerprints are everywhere. God’s name echoes off the walls of creation and His story reverberates in the corridors of humanity’s hearts. Like a master artist who signs his name on his work, His creation is saturated with His signature. From the joys of watercolor sunsets to the darkest sorrows; from yesterday’s regrets to every tomorrow, He greets us and signs: I love you.

Why would God go to such extreme lengths to reveal the depths of who He is?

You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.

Jeremiah 29v13

These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

Colossians 2v17

It seems God has always desired to be known by His creation, revealing Himself in the most unlikely and unforeseen ways to His people. Through slavery, exile, and defeat; through freedom, return, and victory; through His anointed prophets, angelic messengers, and the generations of silence, God has been preparing to reveal Himself in the most provocative of ways.

Not long after Gabriel appeared to Zechariah in the temple, the scriptures say, “The angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth” (Luke 1v26). Two thousand years ago, Nazareth was a town sinking into obscurity and so corrupted by godlessness that Nathaniel remarked, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” (John 1v46).

Why Nazareth?

Why not Rome? It was the most powerful and influential city center and capital city of the superpower in the world at the time, the Roman Empire. Maybe Greece? It was the cultural epicenter of the world. Even Ephesus was an integral and influential port city. But Nazareth? Really? That’s like saying, why not New York City, LA, or Seattle? But Toad Suck Arkansas? Really? Yes, really. Nazareth was the backdrop for the next events that unfurled.

If the conception of God’s plan wasn’t already obscure enough, Gabriel was specifically sent to speak with a young virgin girl named Mary who was betrothed to an honorable man named Joseph. Mary was most likely around the age of fourteen. So rewind the narrative a bit. Four hundred years of silence was finally broken, when an angelic messenger of the Lord visits an old, ordinary, and obscure priest whose wife was barren and childless; he then approaches the tiny town of Nazareth to hang out with a nearly preteen virgin girl named Mary. What an unlikely and obscure way to restore hope amongst God’s people and establish His kingdom.

“And that is the wonder of all wonders, that God loves the lowly…. God is not ashamed of the lowliness of human beings. God marches right in. He chooses people as his instruments and performs his wonders where one would least expect them. God is near to lowliness; he loves the lost, the neglected, the unseemly, the excluded, the weak and broken.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Interestingly, the honorable man Joseph, who was engaged to be married to Mary, comes from the bloodline of the most beloved, revered, and respected king of the Jewish people, King David. He, by the way, was the least likely candidate to be the next king. Plucked out of obscurity, David was a scrawny, young, courageous shepherd boy, who faithfully tended his father’s flock (1 Samuel 16). The psalmist writes, “He chose David his servant and took him from the sheepfolds; from following the nursing ewes he brought him to shepherd Jacob his people, Israel his inheritance” (Psalm 78v70-71). God has a pretty good track record of inviting everyday, ordinary people to join Him in His work.

For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.

1 Samuel 16v7

Gabriel went to Mary and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you.” How do you think Mary responded? You guessed it. Just like every other human being has ever responded in the presence of an angel: with complete and total fear. The scriptures say she was greatly troubled and didn’t know how to discern the gravity of the moment. Gabriel responded to the virgin, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord will give to Him the throne of His father David, and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end” (Luke 1v30-32).

These few verses in the biblical narrative fulfilled many Old Testament prophecies with which the people of God would have not only been familiar, but for which they would have eagerly waited and fervently anticipated. In Genesis 49, Jacob is blessing his twelve sons and simultaneously his blessing served as a prophecy. His descendants would be rulers and one of them would be an ultimate ruler. Jesus was born two thousand years later and Jesus’ ancestry traces back to Jacob’s son. Six hundred years before Gabriel visits Mary, the prophet Jeremiah writes that the messiah will be a descendant of King David (Jeremiah 23v5). A hundred years before Jeremiah, the prophet Isaiah writes that there will be a sign: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call His name Immanuel” (Isaiah 7v14). Immanuel means “God with us.” These are words of promise. God has not forgotten us. God’s people longed to be with God. Ever since the days of Eden, we’ve all longed to be with God. The garden longing lingers heavy upon humanity.

The seemingly insignificant young Virgin Mary, living in obscurity, faithfully living a godly life amongst a godless people, is given one of the most significant roles in the most provocative story ever told. A nobody, living in a town full of nothing, in the middle of nowhere, had found favor with God. Just like the shepherd boy David and the old priest Zechariah before her, Mary was found faithful and God blessed her.

Mary genuinely asks, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” (Luke 1v34). She knows the words of the prophets from the past; she knows the messiah will be born of a virgin, she just asks how? Her questioning is different from that of Zechariah’s. The priest doubts; Mary ponders. In her inquiry, she contemplates the miracle. The angel answers, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God” (Luke 1v35). Every formation of life in the womb is a miracle. It’s a mystery that God has set and “put eternity in man’s hearts” (Ecclesiastes 3v11). Solomon says, “As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything” (Ecclesiastes 11v5). The virgin birth was the work of the Holy Spirit. Just as the Spirit of God was present and presided over the void before creation was conceived, the Spirit of God presides over the void in the womb of Mary as new life is conceived.

Concerned that Mary would be isolated and rejected by her community and family, Gabriel informs Mary that her old and barren cousin Elizabeth is also pregnant. “Wait, what? How can Elizabeth be pregnant? She’s well beyond child-bearing age and she’s been barren her entire life!” Gabriel shares this news with Mary to encourage her and increase her faith. She knows that Elizabeth isn’t the first woman in the scriptures to conceive a child out of barrenness. She knows it must be the work of God. Many scholars believe that barren women who eventually conceived, which is against nature, would be used throughout Israel’s history to prepare Mary (and the world) for this moment. The intricacies of God’s story are stunningly beautiful. “For nothing will be impossible with God” (Luke 1v37). Gabriel assures Mary that God does not fail. And now, she will not have to navigate this pilgrimage alone.

“Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1v38).

Facing the certain reality of the how this will change her standing with her soon-to-be husband, with certain rejection of her community and with her reputation on the line, Mary faithfully and humbly says yes.

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My son Moses loves adventure stories. About a year ago, we began a nighttime story routine. The stories were always the same. An unlikely hero overcomes some crazy predicament that seems impossible to escape. My son loved it, mainly because he was always the unlikely hero. Deep down, my son has a desire to participate in the impossible. The beauty of Advent is that it gives us the opportunity to show our children how we have been invited into the impossible to participate in the miraculous work of God to redeem and save His people. In this story, Jesus is the unlikely hero, but we in Him get to participate in the impossible.

May our children hear the voice of God inviting them to humbly participate in the impossible.

— In 2012, Freddy planted ekklesia, in the suburbs of St. Louis, with the desire to understand the everyday rhythms of the church. This exploration led to conversations on understanding family more deeply. As a former student pastor, family pastor, and now church planter, Freddy has a desire to rekindle an old conversation in new generations - to tell an old story. This is the story of Jesus, the story that shapes all stories. May this story be told in our homes for generations to come. Freddy, his wife Michele, and two sons Ryder and Scout live in St. Charles, Missouri.

David planted Mid-Cities Church in St. Louis, MO in 2014. He is passionate about seeing God's message of reconciliation bring about tangible transformation in both the hearts of people and the life of his city. As our hearts are connected with the Father's heart the message of the gospel becomes clear and the work of Jesus becomes a reality. David is passionate about connecting those dots for others. David, his wife Tara, his daughter Julia and son Moses live in Maplewood, Missouri.

Visit Story Catechism and check out their books. Use promo code gcdadvent for 15% off. Also, they were generous enough to share a free sample of two of their books with GCD’s readers (download sample: Story and Advent).

The Arrival: Prince of Peace

Editor: Today we start our Advent series. There’s a natural sense of restlessness in our world which only Jesus’ presence can bring peace and resolution to. Our desire is to drive our hope toward the incarnate Savior during this season. Glory to God in the highest and peace to his people on earth. —

For many the holidays are a time of joy and merry-making with family and friends. We all have our own traditions. My family enjoys driving through our local park decked out in Christmas lights, visiting a local holiday fair, and taking a carriage ride in an adjacent community. I shouldn’t forget the food. We love some seriously good eats. And would it be Christmas without watching the classics? Elf. Miracle on 34th Street. It’s a Wonderful Life. Home Alone.

However, not everyone’s holiday memories are joyful and merry. Wendell Berry gets it right, “It is hard to have hope.” No other season of the year amplifies this difficulty like the holiday season. All of our misplaced hopes rise to the surface of our hearts and cause discontent and hopelessness. In part this be may due to the holiday façade. Commercials with happy families and friends gathered around the table and the Christmas tree. TV shows where “Christmas magic” makes everything better. Or the picture perfect homes in magazines.

What a juxtaposition. Hopefulness, joy, and merry making and hopelessness, conflict, and loneliness. So what if Christmas isn’t very merry? What if Advent doesn’t feel hopeful?

A PRINCE OF PEACE ARRIVES

For those who are dreading the holidays because of fear, hopelessness, conflict, and loneliness, hear the word of the Lord in Isaiah 9:6-7,

6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 7 Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.

A child was born who brings peace. God offers terms of peace that he meets in the arrival of His Son. Isaiah, as we read, calls Jesus the “Prince of Peace” (9:6). Hear what the angels say when they announce the arrival of Jesus:

8 And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. 10 And the angel said unto them, “Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. 12 And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.” 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, 14 “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”

ON EARTH PEACE

I love how the KJV renders this announcement: “[O]n earth peace, good will toward men.” There’s an expectancy only fulfilled in the gospel. We know the peace is delivered through Jesus Christ, but how? This advent proclamation of peace is the foundation for Paul’s theology of justification. Without this proclamation there’s no justification! So let’s read what Paul writes about peace:

13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility 15 by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, 16 and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. (Eph 2:13-16 see also 6:14-15 “the gospel of peace”)

19 For in him [Jesus] all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. (Col. 1:19-20)

1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. (Rom. 5:1-2)

It’s in Paul’s magnum opus, the letter to the Romans, that he makes the connection undeniable between peace and justification.

So when someone asks Paul “How can a righteous God make peace with man through Jesus?” Paul would say, in shorthand, justification. Study the ministry of Jesus—it’s centered on bringing peace to those who are sinners, sick, scandalized, and the poor in spirit. Jesus embodies and acts out the divine peace through justification by faith in the Gospels, whereas Paul explores and mines these truths systematically in his letters. Latter in the prophecy of Isaiah, the prophet writes,

5 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. (Is. 53:5).

Jesus was crushed for our transgressions which brought us peace. Notice that stark juxtaposition—crushed and peace. Words that are not normal bedfellows.

PEACE FOR FAMILIES

Jesus’s arrival marks the proclamation of good tidings for everyone whom God is pleased with by offering peace with God by Jesus’ blood! And isn’t that good news for families who are hurting this holiday season? The beauty of God’s peace is that it’s not just an individual thing. This peace is covenantal and forms a community of people who have received peace and who can share that peace with others. For the family in conflict there can be peace. For the family ruptured by divorce there can be peace. For the family separated by death there can be peace. For those who feel the weight of loneliness there can be peace. For the husband and wife mourning childlessness there can be peace. Remember Isaiah 53:5? God crushed Jesus to bring us peace and healing. Paul echoes this same sentiment with a twist: “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.”

Those same odd bedfellows (“peace” and “crush”). Satan who is the father of lies and conflict and the dark prince of this fallen world will be crushed under our feet. The authority that Jesus wielded is passed on to us. With his presence (Matt. 28:19-20) and Spirit (Acts 1-2), we are ambassadors of peace in this fallen world and Satan will be ultimately crushed by the authority of the God of peace and his Church.

Dispense peace this week. Plead and pray and trust that the peace of Jesus will be with you and that others might see and receive this blood-bought peace this Advent season. Come alongside those who are hurting. And if there’s conflict in your family, lead with peace and grace and mercy.

Hail the heav'n-born Prince of Peace,

Hail, the Sun of Righteousness

Light and life to all He brings,

Risen with healing in His Wings.

Now He lays His Glory by,⁷

Born that man no more may die

Born to raise the sons of earth,

Born to give them second birth.

Hark! the herald angels sing,

"Glory to the New-born king!"

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Mathew B. Sims is the Editor-in-Chief at Exercise.com and has authored, edited, and contributed to several books including A Household Gospel, We Believe: Creeds, Confessions, & Catechisms for Worship, A Guide for Advent, Make, Mature, Multiply, and A Guide for Holy Week. Mathew, LeAnn (his wife), and his daughters Claire, Maddy, and Adele live in Taylors, SC at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains with their Airdale Terrier. They attend Downtown Presbyterian Church (PCA). Visit MathewBryanSims.com!

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5 Obedience Killing Lies

When Mirela and I loaded up our belongings and headed to the northwest, we were filled with an incredible blend of expectation and zeal. We knew something major was happening, and God was going to let us be part of it. We didn’t have a grand plan. We just had a genuine desire to serve and start a church in Portland. It was a big adventure and we felt like pioneers on the Oregon Trail. As we crossed the Walla Walla mountains in eastern Oregon, we listened to Rich Mullen’s song, “You’re on the Verge of a Miracle.” We couldn’t wait to see mass revival in Portland. God placed us with a remarkable church planting team. We’ve seen lots of evidence of God’s grace in our lives and in the church. He has continually provided for our small church plant. We are thankful for many things. From the outside, it looks pretty good. Church planters come from all over the world to learn about what we are doing. Our missional communities multiply every year. We even have a cool website.

The reality is—life lived on the frontier is hard. We have seen only a handful of people come to Christ and be baptized. Church conflict is constant. It seems as though every time someone joins our church, another person leaves. About a third of the missional communities we start fail. All the while, our city continues to be desperately far from knowing the riches of the gospel. My neighbors constantly reject the good news of Jesus despite our best attempts to demonstrate and proclaim it to them. The city is not flourishing in the peace of salvation, but struggling in the chaos of brokenness. It doesn’t feel like the miracle is happening. We sometimes wonder, “When will the revival come? Will we be around to see it?”

Lessons from China

It reminds me of the church in China. No, not the Chinese church of today, where thousands are baptized daily and they can’t print enough Bibles or equip enough pastors to keep up with the rapid multiplication of the church. Not that movement. I am reminded of the Chinese churches of Hudson Taylor, Robert Morrison, and the Cambridge Seven. They spent the best years of their lives laboring with little or no fruit. Despite decades of evangelism and service, they only witnessed a few conversions and a few new churches in their life times. By the time Mao banned religion, many, even within the missions movement, assumed China was unreachable. These missionaries had seemingly wasted their lives.

However, the house church movement that began to erupt in the 1960s and continues today was built on the foundation of these missionaries. The converts they baptized became the backbone of today’s movement. The few disciples they made, made more disciples, who made disciples, and so on. The revival those missionaries prayed for came. It was just decades after they had died. The pioneering missionaries never saw the packed house churches or the all night baptism services. They didn’t see their prayers answered. Yet, they faithfully served at great personal cost for years. They obeyed the call to go and make disciples without knowing what the lasting affect would be.

The Rewards of Obedience

What do you get for all your anonymous and resultless faithfulness? Nothing short of God. “Discipleship,” Bonheofer writes, “means joy.” The reward is Christ himself. Often we get confused and think the rewards for obedience are big churches, lots of twitter followers, and the approval of our peers. And we miss the promise of Christ.

How sick are we when we lust for the results of Christ’s work, thinking it could belong to us? When we prefer convert stories to Christ? Sadly, many of us will hope more for success than we will hope for Christ.

If you follow Jesus, you may never see revival. Though you love your city, you may never see it transformed. But if you follow Jesus you are guaranteed this one thing—Jesus. Your fruit is the joy of obeying Jesus. Nothing else. The baptisms and church plants belong to God. Those are God’s work, not yours.

Our ability to quit and become sidetracked is great. Our hearts are constantly being attacked by lies that keep us from persevering in faith. These five lies are particularly successful. They are deceptive and effective in killing our conviction to follow Jesus and trust in his work.

1. “You are above this.”

This is the lie of strong pride. That the grunt work isn’t for you. I first heard this lie when I cleaned toilets for a church in Los Angeles. You may hear it while you are watching babies in the nursery Sunday after Sunday. Or when you get stood up once again by your not-yet believing friends for dinner. You hear it when your neighbors shun you for being crazy people who believe in Jesus. The lie is, “You are better then this.” When you believe this lie, you think you are entitled to fame. In reality, you are only entitled to be called a child of God, and that right was purchased by Christ. Don’t settle for position and fame. If you think you are above the job and task, you will not persevere in obedience.

2. “You are below this.”

Many times it also sounds like, “You don’t belong and you don’t deserve this.” This is a lie attacking Christ’s ability to work in and through you. If you believe this lie, you believe that God is not at work, but you are the one at work. This lie leads to fear and rejection of your identity as a son or daughter of God. It is also born out of comparison to others instead of Christ. What is so devastating about this lie is it paralyzes folks from obedience that would give God glory. No one is capable or skilled enough to do what God has called them to do. The Holy Spirit empowers us for the tasks and God is glorified in using us.

3. “If you were better, it would be easier.”

This one comes when things feel incredibly hard. It leads to self loathing and increased suffering. This lie shakes your sense of purpose. You begin to place yourself as the focal point of God’s work and conclude you are either in the way or driving it forward. When things improve, you believe it is because you have done better and have earned it. When things fail, you are certain it is your fault. Similar lies are, “You have to be good to be used for good.” Or “You have to be smarter, better, quicker, more talented, more educated, rich and moral in order to do good.” This leads to a personal quest for self-rightness, excellence, and God’s job. This lie essentially says, “You are this city’s savior.” Eventually you quit in desperation because you have labored without a savior.

4. “If it isn’t happening now, it never will.”

This lie says, “today is all there is and God can’t work tomorrow. If God hasn’t answer your prayers for revival by now, he never will.” When you believe it, you lose perspective on the scope of life and count everything you are doing as worthless. You are no longer content in obedience alone, but want to see what your obedience will create. This is nearsighted dreaming. This lie results in quick quitting or shrinking versions of worthwhile-God-given dreams. This is a lie people believe when the settle for less then the radical surrender and obedience God called them to. When we believe this lie we are saying, “God doesn’t care anymore or he can’t do it.”

5. “You are alone.”

This is the hardest one. Our sinful hearts leap to this lie when we are tired and discouraged. The goal of this lie is to isolate you and make you think no one else cares, and no one else is coming to help. No longer are you being obedient to God’s work, but now you feel like a hired hand. It is as if God is paying you to establish a franchise of his kingdom and is looking for a return on his investment.  Your belief in this lie says, “Jesus doesn’t love me or this city. He didn’t died for this city of for me . . . God abandons his people.”

Gospel Motivation

At the heart of each these lies is an attack on your motivation and an attack on the gospel. The truth is Christ died for you. You are loved and you are his son or daughter (1 John 3:1). He has empowered you with his Spirit to be his witness (Acts 1:8). He will work in you and through you as he works all things together for good and conforms you to the likeness of Christ (Romans 8:28-29). He is with you always, even to the end of the age (Matthew 28).

When I was 11, my family moved to Lisbon, a city of five million people with fewer than 4 percent believing the gospel. Shortly after we arrived, my family went to a hill that overlooked the city we came to win for Christ. My dad wept over it as he prayed for the people and for the gospel to take root and free people. We all cried. We had put everything on the line to follow Jesus to this city. We loved the city and we loved Jesus.

Soon it will be two decades since that day we prayed for that city, and the statistics are the same. My parents saw only a couple people baptized in over a decade of ministry there. They will never see or experience his prayers for the city being answered. What did they experience? God’s lavished grace in new ways; the gospel.

Are you willing to weep over your city for decades and never see your prayers answered, and plant seeds you never see germinate? What if your church never becomes nationally known? What if you don’t write books or speak at conferences? Is the gift of the gospel enough for you?

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Brad Watson (@BradAWatson) serves as a pastor of Bread & Wine Communities in Portland, Oregon. He is a board member of GCDiscipleship.com and co-author of Raised? and Called Together. His greatest passion is to encourage and equip leaders for the mission of making disciples.

Missional Lessons for the Holidays

GOD CREATED HOLIDAYS

Cultural celebrations are not man-made institutions. Like much of God’s creation, holidays can be—and have been—distorted for all sorts of less-than-holy purposes. But what if “Santa” really isn’t an anagram for “Satan”? What if we can we redeem this holiday season, and use it for God’s work?

Seen throughout the Old Testament, and most clearly in Leviticus 23, God commanded His people to pause several times each year, simply to feast and celebrate. Here are far-too-brief summaries of Old Testament Israel’s national holidays:

• The Festival of Trumpets (Rosh Hashanah) kicked off the Jewish New Year with the blast of a ram’s horn. God’s people gathered as one, as Israel kicked off each year with ten days of feasting, celebrating God, and ceasing work to rest in Him.
• The Day of Atonement was an annual reminder of Israel’s sin and God’s forgiveness. In a solemn service on the most important day of the Jewish year, one ram was killed as a symbol of appeasing God’s wrath, as another symbolized  God’s removal of sin, being sent into the wilderness never to return.
• The Feast of Booths saw Israel praying for her upcoming harvest. To visibly recall God’s past deliverance from Egypt, they lived in tents for a week. As they then returned to their homes—seventeen days in total after gathering for Rosh Hashanah—they celebrated God’s gift of their permanent dwellings, symbolic of His giving them the Promised Land.
• Passover remembers the biggest event in Israel’s history: God’s original rescue of His people, in His plaguing power over Egypt. Israel sacrificed and roasted a lamb, and still tangibly recall God’s work through readings, foods, and glasses of wine.
• Passover kicked off the Feast of Unleavened Bread. For seven days, Israel recalled the speed with which their ancestors fled Egypt the night of the original Passover.
• The First Fruits Offering marked the beginning of the harvest. A day of thanksgiving, the celebration included offering Israel’s best produce to God, and recalling God’s power and grace in sustaining and providing for His people.
• The Feast of Weeks (called Pentecost) again pointed to God’s provision. Another offering made; more feasts occurred; more thanks shared—this time at the end of the wheat harvest.

LESSONS FROM THE STORY OF ISRAEL

This is more than a bit of Jewish history. Each feast foreshadows God’s work in Jesus’ death and resurrection. These celebrations were celebrated by Jews for centuries and by Jesus Himself. And they inform our own celebrations:

First, Leviticus shows that God instituted intentional celebration into the annual rhythm of His people. God’s people ceased from work and partied. They cooked meat—a luxury in those days—and enjoyed good drink. They made music, relaxed, and played together. They laughed and grieved together. Celebrations are right and good.

Celebrations also cut to the heart of mission: God’s people didn’t celebrate by themselves. They included those around them. Even people with different beliefs. Consider this instruction: “You shall rejoice in your feast, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow who are within your towns.” This idea echoes through the Old Testament Law: “sojourners” were foreigners in Israel who joined the feasts; “servants” from various nations celebrated with God’s people; “strangers” and “aliens” weren’t Israelites but joined their events.

A final Levitical lesson is that people, events, and even milestones themselves were never the focus of Israel’s celebrations. Israel celebrated one thing, in many ways throughout each year: God. They didn’t celebrate grain; they celebrated the Giver of that grain. They didn’t celebrate their power over Pharaoh; they had no such power! They celebrated God’s power. These lessons combine to show us not only that not-yet-believers were invited to Israel’s feasts; they observed—and in ways, even participated—as God’s people celebrated God, on days God created for just that occasion.

REDEEMING THIS HOLIDAY SEASON

If Israel—geographically set apart from the rest of the world—publicly celebrated God in the midst of strangers, foreigners, and sojourners, there’s hope for us as we consider holidays. Jesus probably wasn’t born on December 25, and God didn’t invent Halloween or Thanksgiving. But these and other annual days have been carved into our culture, to cease work, celebrate, and engage others. Gifts abound in December, giving us an easy chance to surprise coworkers and classmates with cookies or a brief note. And the world still rings in the New Year with gatherings and far more pomp than Israel’s trumpet blast.

Instead of celebrating this Christmas season, New Years Eve, and other occasions alone or with just-Christian friends—and instead of creating “Christian” versions of special events already happening in our city and neighborhood— let’s celebrate these occasions on mission. Let’s display the gospel through generosity, grace, conversation, and joy. And let’s declare the gospel through stories, toasts, and prayers. Sure, many cultural celebrations have long forgotten God. But we haven’t, and we’ve been sent to those who have. God is sovereign, even the fact that someone declared certain days holidays. God uses even the most broken things—and days—for His mission. How can we do the same?

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Ben Connelly, his wife Jess, and their daughters Charlotte and Maggie live in Fort Worth, TX. He started and now co-pastors The City Church, part of the Acts29 network and Soma family of churches. Ben is also co-author of A Field Guide for Everyday Mission (Moody Publishers, 2014). With degrees from Baylor University and Dallas Theological Seminary, Ben teaches public speaking at TCU, writes for various publications, trains folks across the country, and blogs in spurts at benconnelly.net. Twitter: @connellyben.

(Editor’s Note: Used with permission from the authors. This is adapted from A Field Guide for Everyday Mission by Ben Connelly & Bob Roberts Jr. available from Moody Publishers. )

The Presence of Advent

The Greatest Fear


What is the single greatest fear that most people have about the Advent season, especially Christmas Day? I doubt it has to do with finding the perfect gift. Nor does it seem like the inevitable holiday weight-gain would rank as the greatest fear. Debates over religion and politics at the dinner table might earn a higher rank but even those fights are nothing compared to a deeper fear of the soul.

I believe it to be the lack of presence. Not a lack of presents (or gifts) but a lack of presence. No one wants to be alone during this season. We sing songs about being home for Christmas. Many Christmas films riff on the theme of being separated from family and loved ones at Christmas. We cower at the thought of waking up to ourselves with no lit tree, no joyful laughter, and with nobody to share the day. Consider the very ghosts that haunted Scrooge in Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol, they haunted him with lonely Christmases.  Studies indicate that depression hits widows and widowers deepest at the holidays. I can almost guess that a full 98% of people reading this article would prefer to have someone, even if they didn’t really like them, to be with on Christmas over spending it with no one at all.

What is it about Advent that reveals this fear in almost all of us? If we look at the very nature of what it means we will find the very reason being physically alone during this season troubles so many. At its core it is more than just remembering the coming of God into our existence, Advent is about the actual presence of God in our existence. It’s the one season that reminds us that God is with us. So, when we consider a season that tells us God is with us and yet functionally experience it in loneliness a massive discord hits. The discord, for most, isn’t with God. It’s within ourselves. We should be experiencing presence. We should be with others and God should be with us.

Presence on the Way

Four hundred years is a long time to wait. The United States of America has barely existed for half of that time. It would be nearly impossible to understand then the absence and silence from God for that amount of time. However, that is exactly where the people of Israel were. National culture and identity would go through an immense rewriting if it had been four hundred years since you had a prophetic word from the national center of worship activity. Certainly brief and dim glimpses of recovery and hope came and recharged everyone’s expectations but they were just that, brief and dim. Sure, they had the prophetic words of old to lean on. Isaiah did promise Emmanuel, even if that was seven hundred years ago.

Then, rumors started cropping up. Angelic visitations occurred. Barren old women conceived. Kings from the East traveled West. A nation immigrated within itself because of a census. A virgin was with child. Then, the rumors died down. Things went back to normal for another thirty years until a shabbily dressed man like Elijah began to speak for God in the wilderness. He was no respecter of persons and called kings, priests, and publicans to repent. A nation finally received a prophetic word: “The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world is present. God is with us. Emmanuel has come.”

Yes, Emmanuel, God with us. He was attested to be God by his words and works by doing things only God could do. God with us possessing authority to drive out sin, devils, and death. God with us doing justice, loving the outcast and the stranger. God with us dinning with the drunkards, the harlots, and the sinners. God with us clothed in the material flesh of our bodies. Emmanuel experienced the physical limitations, pains, and agonies of our condition. God with us bearing the wrath of God in our place for our offenses against God and taking our very own death-blow. God with us being laid in a tomb dead for three days, he, God with us, was miraculously raised to glorious new life again by the power of God–securing resurrection life for all who trust in him. God with us sent his eternal presence to indwell and empower us for lives of glory and mission. He hasn’t left us, in fact, God with us has come, became flesh, and lived in our very domain and gifted us his eternal presence so we would always be with him.

Advent as a Missional Teacher

This is what Advent points us towards. A seasonal reminder of presence. An annual celebration of God’s personal intervention and presence with us. Advent teaches us that God is with us and that God is for us. Advent shows us God-in-action working for his glory and for our good.  Our reflection of this reality can not leave us to merely feel good about God with us, it must propel us forward to display the God whose image we bear.

Advent becomes a missional teacher to us as we consider that God shares life with broken, messed up, needy, people of disrepute. As we increasingly consider God with us, we must ask ourselves are we displaying this reality to the world? Are we showing lonely people God with us by our presence with them? Are we enacting this good news for the same broken, messed up, needy, people of disrepute that God with us hung out with?

As much as Advent is a season for gathering with family and friends, for the church it is a missional launching point for us to inhabit and take the gospel to the world. The world sits and waits year after year for a savior. They make functional saviors of sex, power, possessions, comfort, and a billion other idols they can find. Yet, all the while being let down year after year by their little, failing, and distant gods. The world is waiting, the Savior has come, the church must be present!

Practically this boils down to one thing—be with people. In the same way God became present in the world, he sends us to go and be with the world. Be at the parties, the Christmas programs, the neighborhood celebrations, the family dinners, and the company gift-exchange. As you are with people, love them. Be the presence that the lonely, lost, waiting world is so eager to receive. Show them their Savior through your love, by the way you honor them, give them dignity, listen to their stories, and hear their hurts.

A rocket-science degree isn’t mandatory, just ask the Holy Spirit to show you someone that he can display his presence to through your presence with them, and then follow his lead. Go be present with the world because God is present with you. The world waits for God with us and we are blessed to display that God is with us!

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Jeremy Writebol(@jwritebol) has been training leaders in the church for over thirteen years. He is the author of everPresent: How the Gospel Relocates Us in the Present (GCD Books, 2014) and writes at jwritebol.net. He lives and works in Plymouth, MI as the Campus Pastor of Woodside Bible Church.

What Can Protestants Learn From Mary?

  In Luke chapter 1, the angel Gabriel greets Mary: “O favored one, the Lord is with you!” He then continues with: “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.”

It is rare for us Protestants to linger long over Mary, the mother of Jesus. Whether in reading or meditating over Scripture, we quickly pass over her.

For those of us working to keep the gospel at center, taking a longer look at Mary's place in our theology and practical living could yield much fruit. After all, part of internalizing the gospel is understanding how God brought it forth through real flesh and blood people. The incarnation happened because God favored a woman and chose her to be a real live mother to his Son!

Mary Was Favored by the Lord

We may not fully comprehend how it is that God “favors” someone, but we cannot deny that the words came out of the angel Gabriel: “O favored one,” and “for you have found favor with God.” God the Father loved Mary, the young lady, living in Nazareth. Out of all the women in the history of the world, he chose her to be the mother of his Son.

This particular word, favored, used here in Luke 1:28 (KJV says “highly favoured”), is used in only one other place in the Bible, and that is in Ephesians 1:6. It means to bestow favor upon, to freely give, or to show kindness to, endued with grace. The Latin Vulgate translates it into “full of grace” which has given some the impression that Mary inherently had this special grace. But that is not the case. Mary was given a special grace from God. In the wise and secret council of God he determined that out of all the women in the history of mankind, that he would give a special endowment of favor to Mary—a poor, young, virgin girl from the lineage of David.

Matthew Henry says of Mary: “We have here an account given of the mother of our Lord, of whom he was to be born, whom, though we are not to pray to, yet we ought to praise God for.”

My question is: If Mary found favor with God, why does she not find favor with us? Why not give honor where honor is due, as Scripture teaches (Rom. 13:7)?

Giving Appropriate Honor to Mary

I believe we can honor Mary because of what God did through her. Just as we look highly upon the Apostle Paul and learn from him, we can look at the life of Mary and learn from her.

Later in the first chapter of Luke, after her encounter with her cousin Elizabeth, Mary sings a song of praise to God, which we refer to as the Magnificat. Although the song extols the character and virtue of God, it tells us some things about Mary herself:

And Mary said, My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior; for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name. And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, In remembrance of his mercy. As he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever.

Her humble acquiescence alone puts me to shame. How many of us if we were told by an angel that God would do something in our life that will bring raised eyebrows, possibly lose a spouse, ruin our reputation, and cause us grief, would submit with such grace and humility?

Learning from Mary

We Christians will, without hesitation, give honor to church fathers and theologians, authors and pastors whom we find to be “full of grace” in their own ways. We “magnify” them by reading them, learning from them, telling others about them, quoting them, appreciating them.... They have “found favor” with us. So again, I ask, if Mary found favor with God, why not with us?

Mary didn't huddle down in sinful fear at was going to happen to her; her soul magnified God and her spirit rejoiced in God her Savior. She is not puffed up because she has been so especially blessed. Her soul lifts up God and her spirit finds joy in the one and only person who can give lasting and true joy—God her Savior. Furthermore, we see that she understood her salvation was from God.

She confesses she is of a lowly estate, she's not being proud of her poverty, nor puffed up in the redemption offered to her. She gives honor to God because he is the one that has done a mighty thing for her. Although she is not afraid to speak of her blessed position and the grace that was given to her, there is no arrogance or false humility in her words.

Mary knows her theology; she is versed in the words of the Old Testament Scriptures. Her words testify that she was a young woman who had invested time in learning. She may have been young and poor, but she wasn't uneducated.

Studying the words of Mary we also see that she was a woman of faith. Her understanding of the Scriptures was not just academic, Mary had internalized her knowledge of God. Her knowledge came out in a devoted and fervent faith. And we see the fruit (outward manifestation) by the way she questioned the angel—without doubt and faithlessness; We see it by her submission to God in verse 38 of Luke chapter one. And we see it in faith filled words in her song.

This small article is but a stone skimming. There is a lot of depth to Mary and her life if we but put in the effort to study. God gave a special grace to Mary—I think we would be wise to learn from her.

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Luma Simms (@lumasimms) is a wife and mother of five delightful children. She studied physics and law before Christ led her to become a writer, blogger, and Bible study teacher. She is the author of Gospel Amnesia: Forgetting the Goodness of the News. She blogs regularly at Gospel Grace.

Responding to Impossible Promises

Note: This is an excerpt from our FREE Advent eBook, Come Lord Jesus Come. You can download it here. What is hope? We use the word all the time. I hope I don’t get sick. I hope my boss is nice to me. I hope my favorite sports team is good this year.

When we use “hope” this way, we really mean something more like wish – a desire for something we want to have happen regardless of feasibility. Biblical hope, on the other hand, is "the confidence that what God has done for us in the past guarantees our participation in what God will do in the future.” The word “guarantees” demonstrates the vast difference between the fleeting wishes of casual hope and strong promise of biblical hope.

Hope is a future-oriented term, but it is grounded in past events. In the Old Testament, the source of hope for God’s people was God’s proven character and His mighty deeds in history. The Psalmist says, “Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God, who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, who keeps faith forever, who executes justice for the oppressed, who gives food to the hungry” (Psalm 146:5-7). His hope is founded in who God is and what He has done.

Difficult Promises

What, then, do we do with some of the really difficult promises that God has made to us in Scripture?  Like 1 Corinthians 10:13: “God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability.” If this is true, then why are we still struggling with the same old sin? The Bible’s promises should give us confidence and contentment in God's faithfulness, but the reality is we often find ourselves in doubt and frustration. It might be that we don’t think God will actually come through on his promise or maybe that he is even unable to do so.

We can see two very different responses to these kinds of impossible promises in Zechariah and Mary. Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth were childless and “advanced in years,” meaning well past the time where they could have a baby. Barrenness for any expectant parents can bring great sorrow and pain, but compound this for Zechariah and Elizabeth, who lived in a culture that very likely condemned them as being cursed by God because of some great sin in their lives. You can imagine the angel Gabriel’s delight in telling them that not only was God answering their prayers for a child, but He was giving them a son like Elijah who would prepare the way for the Messiah.

 Zechariah said to the angel, “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.” And the angel answered him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. And behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time.” - Luke 1:18-19

And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”  - Luke 1:34-38

Zechariah’s response was one of doubt and unbelief. God was delivering the greatest news this old man could have ever received — the answer to his decades-long prayer — yet Zechariah said, “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.” He wanted a sign. He wanted it to make sense. Like we are prone to do, Zechariah doubted God’s promise and maybe even God’s ability.

In contrast, Mary’s response to God’s “impossible” promise was one of humility. When Gabriel came to Mary, saying, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” Luke tells us that Mary was greatly troubled, trying to figure out what it meant. She didn't understand it, but she received it. Rather than indignation, Mary’s initial posture was one of humility.

Then Gabriel gave her a promise that was just as unbelievable as the one he gave to Zechariah: “Despite the fact that you’re not married, despite the fact that you’ve never been with a man, despite the fact that in your knowledge you’re not from any type of royal lineage, you’re going to have a baby growing in your womb whose kingdom will never ever, ever, ever, ever end.” Zechariah said, “This can’t be.” Mary said, “Let it be to me according to your word.”

We can easily contrast Mary’s humility against Zechariah’s indignation, but it is worth digging deeper: What about them produced these kinds of reactions? The difference between them is not their situation or strength, but rather their hope in God’s love for them. It seems that Zechariah had given up on the idea that God loved him and would provide for him. We can imagine him screaming, "You haven't been there for the past fifty years, so why should I believe that you’ll be there now?” Mary, on the other hand, seems to have simply believed that God loved her so much that He would deliver on his promise.

We Hope In Christ

When you hear or read the promises of God that seem to be too good to be true, do you believe that God loves you? When you are in a dark place, can you see that God is near and working for our good, to conform us into the image of His Son? This is what God did with Zechariah, even in his unbelief. Zechariah went through a grinder of disappointment, followed by nine months of silence, but on the other side of God’s provision, he was a humble and joyful man who hoped and trusted in God’s promises.

Christmas morning shows us that God is willing to fulfill His promises. Easter morning proves that God is able to fulfill His promises. We hope in both. We hope in Christ.

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Nathan Sherman. Born and raised in Texas, Nathan helped plant Providence Church  where they completed a two-year church-planting residency and internship. He is now making disciples at Desert Springs Church in Albuquerque, NM  along with his wife, Marcie, and their  three sons Owen, Caleb, and Micah.

Will Walker. After six years as a missionary to college students at the University of Texas and four years as an associate pastor at Coram Deo church in Omaha, NE, followed God’s call to plant Providence Church in the fall of 2010. He currently writes for World Harvest Mission and New Growth Press. Will and his wife, Debbie, are the parents of two boys, Ethan and Holden.

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Keep reading Come Lord Jesus Come and download it for FREE here.

Between the Advents

For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; and the government will rest on His shoulders; and His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this. - Isaiah 9:6

Six and Seven year-olds massacred in Newtown, CT. Others randomly shot in a mall in Oregon. Dozens of other headlines highlight less spectacular bloodshed in your hometown newspaper. It appears there is no end in sight. Random wickedness and brokenness are also your problem in your otherwise safe pocket of the world. Evil is local and apparently sustainable. It seems to be everywhere and affecting everything. Though the topic of evil is often suppressed and psychologized in our public discourse, it persists.

Less dramatic, but equally as personal, is your neighbor who actively dreads the holidays at the dysfunctional home of his youth. How do you avoid the curse on your hometown when every town is rife with the same brokenness and fear? The dread of the family that fell painfully short of the ideal: bitter divorce, fatherlessness, selfish people living selfish lives with deep wounds of rejection. Look around. This is where we’re from, but it’s not where we want to live. We find ourselves in grief and fear longing for peace and comfort. Like a hip out of socket we are limping. We are hurting.

Meanwhile, buried deep within the lines of a familiar carol springs:

"Fear not then," said the Angel, 

let nothing you affright, This day is born a Savior Of a pure Virgin bright, To free all those who trust in Him From Satan's power and might.

 O Tiding of Comfort and Joy

Comfort and Joy.”

The Tension between the Advents

Advent, or coming, is a less familiar latin term referencing the historical fact that God took on flesh and dwelt amongst us in the person of Jesus from Nazareth. He came to do battle with death. He came to reconcile predator and prey. He came, we are told, to bring peace, hope, joy, and love to the world. Impressively Jesus dealt with both the penalty and the power of sin in his first coming. We can be justified, are declared righteous, and are empowered to live righteously in the power of the Spirit he sent for us. However, we are not yet saved from the presence of sin.  Even the faithful are tempted to ask, "Must we continue to sing the songs of universal peace, a few days earlier each year, while their promise is still largely unrealized?"

Already/Not Yet

Advent is the first installment of two comings. The scriptures reveal that God will again inhabit earth in flesh. Jesus will come again and when he returns, comprehensive salvation is coming with him. In the early 20th century, Princeton Theologian Gerhardus Vos coined a helpful and scripturally consistent phrase to capture the present tension between the advents: “the already/not yet.” Vos observed that much of the good we seek is resident with believers after Christ’s 1st Advent. While at the same time, aspects of God’s promises are still future and won’t be experienced until the 2nd coming, or advent, of Christ and the culmination.

The ‘already’ looks like things put back in socket. New people come to faith and see their lives renovated by Christ. Marriages are restored. Kids grow up strong with parents that love them consistently and sacrificially. Gospel words are shared where there was once legalism or license. Communities rally to meets the needs of the vulnerable. Merriment and good cheer not only at Christmas but all year. Beauty all around.

But all is not as it should be, at least not yet. The ‘not yet’ is devastatingly tangible for the 40 parents of deceased 1st graders in Newtown. ‘Not yet’ is the unrest that all of us feel after such an event. Not yet are the masses who consciously live for self, forsaking the cost of love and community. Not yet are our cities full of single moms, shut-ins. sex traded children, and the scores of people who couldn’t care less.

Most Christmas seasons are a bundling of good news and bad news, celebration and mourning--the ‘already’ with the ‘not yet.’ We live between advents and we live in tension. With a good bit of joy and lingering pain.

Our waiting for the completion of joy and elimination of grief is filled with questions about closing the gap. What should we expect the pace of restoration to be like? Are we naive to wish for sweeping reforms and more comprehensive change in our lifetime? Is there anything I can do to make it come faster?

We are certainly too cynical if we assert “this is just the way life is” when we are privy to in the first Advent and the now massive fork it has created in the human narrative. The gospel is still the power of God to save all who believe and we know that God is competent and thorough (Romans 1:16). Peter reminds the believer of a living hope, a salvation ready to revealed in the last time. There is much more to come and it is better than what has gone before it (1 Peter 1:5).

Expect Bigger Government

Jesus. Messiah. Baby. Daddy. Prince of Peace. The King and his rule. A wonderful Counselor with the strength to pull it all off, forever.

The kings who conquered Jerusalem always began in Zebulun and Naphtali, in northern Israel, in route to Jerusalem. Jesus was no different. He began his kingdom reign in the north, in Galilee. He started his quest by calling men to himself, teaching with authority, casting out demons, and generally reversing everything that was broken in his little corner of the world all the way to Jerusalem. It was there he died for peace and rose again for everlasting peace.

Yet, the promise found in Isaiah 9 was for an increase of his government and of a peace without end. So, what started small like a mustard seed grew and turned one nation upside down before going viral through Samaria and the uttermost parts of the earth. His kingdom continues to expand. Jesus and his ever increasing government means more is “already” and less is “not yet.” While local tragedies devastate us and obscure our line of sight, we do well to span out and recognize the broader movement of God. Justice and righteousness is intermittently experienced and universal flourishing is coming.

Promises are made to be fulfilled. The God who makes them is more real than the present tragedy. His faithfulness in the past and his promises about the present age of the Spirit and the future age to come are enough to give us strength and perspective.

This past year, I have watched first-hand as two drug addicts came to know Jesus. From where they sit, the Kingdom has indeed come and is mostly ‘already.’ To contrast where they were with where they are now overwhelms them with optimism. The world is not as dark as it used to be. They are not as broken as they used to be. Things seem to be getting better. Christ’s rule appears to be expanding in all kinds of creative ways as they find themselves in God’s family and on his mission. They are contagiously hopeful in Christ’s work.

But who is right? The emotions we experience after the Newtown massacre or the hope of the newly redeemed? Life between the Advents argues they are both right. Christ brings comfort in the ‘not yet’ and joy in the ‘already.’

This Advent

Chances are your neighbors are struggling this holiday season with the stories on cable news, the obligatory visit home, or the broken stuff that they have just come to accept as normal human life. So, they might get drunk with more regularity. They might cry but tell no one. These are real people, across your street who see the massacre in Newtown turned way up, and any sense of tangible hope muted. If you know Jesus you have the opportunity to bring more balance to the conversation.

Be a hope-dealer this Advent. Hit the streets. Move some product. Get the word out. Because God did come softly to earth as a baby, lived obscurely as a servant, and died unjustly in our place, we have hope to deal. Because, his love is so capable and his Kingdom so forceful, we can hope for better--much better. We hope in the present and in the perfect future that the scriptures continue to insist are already a sure thing.

This is good news to your struggling neighbor. Will you invite them into the alternate narrative God is writing with your family? What will you give her? What will you say to him? Who will you hug? How well will you listen? What will you pray? How will you speak honestly this Advent to the reality of the pain and the reality of the resurrection?

Duke Revard (ThM) serves as an Elder and Equipper with Bread&Wine in Portland, Oregon. He is the vice-chairman of the board of Soma Communities. He equips his family, Portlanders, and church planters for the work of ministry. Duke is husband to Caroline and father to three daughters. Follow him on twitter @dukerevard.

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Read more articles on Advent: Incarnation in the City by Bethany Jenkins and Long Live the King by Jake Chambers.

The Presence of Advent

What is the single greatest fear that most people have about the Advent season, especially Christmas day? I doubt it has to do with finding the perfect gift. Nor does it seem like the inevitable holiday weight-gain would rank as the greatest fear. Debates over religion and politics at the dinner table might earn a higher rank but even those fights are nothing compared to a deeper fear of the soul.

What might be the single greatest fear during Christmas?

I believe it to be the lack of presence. Not a lack of presents (or gifts) but a lack of presence. No one wants to be alone during this season. We sing songs about being home for Christmas. Many Christmas films riff on the theme of being separated from family and loved ones at Christmas. We cower at the thought of waking up to ourselves with no lit tree, no joyful laughter, and with nobody to share the day. Consider the very ghosts that haunted Scrooge in Charles Dicken's A Christmas Carol, they haunted him with lonely Christmases.  Studies indicate that depression hits widows and widowers deepest at the holidays. I can almost guess that a full 98% of people reading this article would prefer to have someone, even if they didn't really like them, to be with on Christmas over spending it with no one at all.

What is it about Advent that reveals this fear in almost all of us? If we look at the very nature of what Advent means we will find the very reason being physically alone during this season troubles so many. At its core Advent is more than just remembering the coming of God into our existence, Advent is about the actual presence of God in our existence. Advent is the one season that reminds us that God is with us. So, when we consider a season that tells us God is with us and yet functionally experience it in loneliness a massive discord hits. The discord, for most, isn't with God, it's within ourselves. We should be experiencing presence. We should be with others and God should be with us.

Presence on the Way

Four hundred years is a very long time to wait. The United States of America has barely existed for half of that time. It would be nearly impossible to understand then the absence and silence from God for that long. However, that is exactly where the people of Israel were. National culture and identity would go through an immense rewriting if it had been four hundred years since you had a prophetic word from the national center of worship activity. Certainly brief and dim glimpses of recovery and hope came and recharged everyone's expectations but they were just that, brief and dim.  Sure, they had the prophetic words of old to lean on. Isaiah did promise Emmanuel, even if that was seven hundred years ago.

Then, rumors started cropping up. Angelic visitations occurred. Barren old women conceived. Kings from the East traveled West. A nation immigrated within itself because of a census. A virgin was with child. Then, the rumors died down. Things went back to normal for another thirty years until a shabbily dressed man like Elijah began to speak for God in the wilderness. He was no respecter of persons and calls kings, priests, and publicans to repent. A nation finally received a prophetic word: “The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world is present. God is with us. Emmanuel has come.”

Yes, Emmanuel, God-With-Us. He was attested to be God by his words and works by doing things only God could do. God-With-Us possessing authority to drive out sin, devils, and death. God-With-Us doing justice, loving the outcast, and the stranger. God-With-Us dinning with the drunkards, the harlots, and the sinners. God-With-Us clothed in the material flesh of our bodies, Emanuel experienced the physical limitations, pains, and agonies of our condition. God-With-Us bearing the wrath of God in our place for our offenses against God and taking our very own death-blow. God-With-Us being laid in a tomb dead for three days, he, God-With-Us, was miraculously raised to glorious new life again by the power of God--securing resurrection life for all who trust in him. God-With-Us sent his eternal presence to indwell and empower us for lives of glory and mission. He hasn’t left us, in fact, God-With-Us has come, became flesh and lived in our very domain and gifted us his eternal presence so we would always be with him.

Advent as a Missional Teacher

This is what Advent points us towards. A seasonal reminder of presence. An annual celebration of God’s personal intervention and presence with us. Advent teaches us that God is with us and that God is for us. Advent shows us God-in-action working for his glory and for our good.  Our reflection of this reality can not leave us to merely feel good about God With Us, it must propel us forward to display the God whose image we bear.

Advent becomes a missional teacher to us as we consider that God shares life with broken, messed up, needy, people of disrepute. As we increasingly consider God-With-Us we must ask ourselves are we displaying this reality to the world? Are we showing lonely people God-With-Us by our presence with them? Are we enacting this good news for the same broken, messed up, needy, people of disrepute that God hung out with?

As much as Advent is a season for gathering with family and friends, for the church it is a missional launching point for us to inhabit and take the gospel to the world. The world sits and waits year after year for a savior. They make functional saviors of sex, power, possessions, comfort, and a billion other idols they can find. Yet, all the while being let down year after year by their little, failing, and distant gods. The world is waiting, the Savior has come, the church must be present!

Practically this boils down to one thing: be with them. In the same way God was became present the world he sends us to go and be with the world. Be at the parties, the Christmas programs, the neighborhood celebrations, the family dinners, and the company gift-exchange. As you are with them, love them. Be the presence that the lonely, lost, waiting world is so eager to receive. Show them their savior through your love, by the way you honor them, give them dignity, listen to their stories, and hear their hurts.

A rocket-science degree isn’t mandatory for this, just ask the Holy Spirit to show you someone that he can display his presence to through your presence with them, and then follow his lead. Go be present with the world because God is present with you. The world waits for God-With-Us and we are blessed to display that God is with us!

Jeremy Writebol (@jwritebol) is the husband of Stephanie and daddy of Allison and Ethan. He lives and works in Wichita, KS as the Community Pastor at Journey the Way and the director of Porterbrook Kansas. His book, everPresent Gospel, is forthcoming on GCD Press and he writes at jwritebol.net.

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Read more on Advent: The Object of Our Hope by Jonathan Dodson and  download the free devotional, Come Lord Jesus Come by Will Walker and Nathan Sherman.

Incarnation in the City

If we do not understand the weight of the miracle of the incarnation of Christ, it is because we do not understand the weight of the holiness of God. The incarnation is shocking. It is outrageous to think that an infinite and holy God would voluntarily become finite to live with unholy sinners. In fact, the incarnation is so appalling that it is the thing that separates Christianity from Islam and Judaism. The Jerusalem Talmud says, “If man claims to be God, he is a liar” (Ta’anit 2:1), while the Quran says, “Allah begets not and was not begotten.” (Sura al-Ikhlas 112). Jews and Muslims understand how ludicrous it is to think that a holy God would humiliate himself by becoming human.

The Dreadful Holiness of God

The holiness of God is fearful. But if we want to know God and ourselves, we must begin by seeing how much God loves his holiness and cherishes his purity. If we do not start here, the gospel will become cheap to us. As A.W. Tozer wrote,

“Unless the weight of the burden is felt, the gospel can mean nothing to man; and until he sees a vision of God high and lifted up, there will be no woe and no burden. Low views of God destroy the gospel for all who hold them”. The Knowledge of the Holy

Under the old covenant, people responded to the holiness of God with awe and reverence. When Moses met the Lord, he “hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God” (Exodus 3:6). Then, years later, when he begged to see God’s glory, God said, “You cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live” (Exodus 33:20). When the ark of the Lord was being brought back to Israel, some men looked inside of it and, as a result, the Lord struck down fifty thousand men. The people despaired, “Who is able to stand before the Lord, this holy God?” (1 Samuel 6:20). When David was bringing the ark to Jerusalem, one man merely touched it, and God struck him down immediately, “And David was afraid of the Lord that day, and he said, ‘How can the ark of the Lord come to me?’” (2 Samuel 6:9). The nearer Ezekiel approached the throne of the Lord, the less sure his words became: “Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And when I saw it, I fell on my face” (Ezekiel 1:28).

Not only did people tremble at his holiness, the Lord himself frequently spoke about it. Through Isaiah, he said, “Who has measured the Spirit of the Lord, or what man shows him his counsel … All the nations are as nothing before him, they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness” (Isaiah 40:13, 17). When Job finished calling his character into question, the Lord answered from the whirlwind, “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? … Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?” (Job 38:2, 4).

The Incarnation of that Dreadful Holiness

Jesus embodies the holiness of God because he is God and has been with God from the beginning. This means that, when God acted under the old covenant, Jesus – as part of the Godhead – was right there with him. This is why the incarnation is a shocking miracle. In Christ, God has effected self-disclosure. Our holy God, who told Moses, “for man shall not see me and live”, became incarnate. People saw him and lived. Our holy God, who struck down a man for touching the ark and another fifty thousand for looking inside of it, became incarnate. People spit upon him and lived. Our holy God, whose throne was so magnificent that Ezekiel failed to find words to describe it, became incarnate. He was born as a baby in a manger, not a throne. Our holy God, who demanded blood sacrifices to atone for sin, became incarnate. He allowed himself to be butchered on a cross. Our holy God, who asked Job, “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?”, became incarnate. He was born in an insignificant little town and worked as a mere carpenter in Nazareth.

Incarnation in Our Cities

What does the incarnation mean for us today? First, the incarnation means that we live in the world, but not of it. As Jesus prayed for his disciples, “I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world”. In other words, we pursue holy lives of obedience and sacrifice even as we engage in our cities.

Second, the incarnation means that we seek opportunities to deny ourselves. Self-denial is not a popular topic in our culture, but it is the starting point for Christian growth in the mind of Christ. When Jesus became incarnate, he voluntarily denied himself the privileges of being God in order to be mocked and killed. He did this because he longed to redeem us and knew that, in order to accomplish our salvation, the demands of his holiness had to be met. We could not meet them, so he met them for us. We, in turn, are to have the same mind, “do[ing] nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count[ing] others more significant than [our]selves” (Philippians 3:3). We deny ourselves to love others.

Third, the incarnation means that we do not love money. God is the richest being in the universe. Everything is made by him, through him and for him. Yet as he looked upon the world and decided into what family he would come, he chose the poorest of the poor. When Mary and Joseph went to the temple after the birth of Jesus, Luke records, “And when the time came for their purification according to the Law of Moses, they brought [Jesus] up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord … and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the Law of the Lord, ‘a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons’” (Luke 2:22-24). Under the Law, the regular sacrifice was a lamb, but there was a provision for poor mothers: “If she cannot afford a lamb, then she shall take two turtledoves or two pigeons” (Leviticus 12:8). This is what Mary brought. Jesus, who had all the riches of the world at his disposal, chose to be incarnate into a family that could not even afford a regular sacrifice. Let us not love riches.

Fourth, the incarnation means that we should not overvalue physical beauty. Our culture loves external appearances, but the incarnate Christ chose to come as someone who had no physical beauty or majesty. He is the most glorious person who has ever lived, but we did not recognize his glory. Thousands saw him with their eyes, but they saw nothing with their hearts. We, in turn, must look for beauty in our world with the eyes of our heart. What will we see when we look at the world this way? We will see that, today, the Lord lives in the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick and the prisoner. As Jesus taught, when we care for such people, we do this unto him.

Finally, the incarnation means that God is for us. Paul was not merely referring to the crucifixion when he wrote, “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:31-32). He was also referring to the incarnation, when Jesus left the side of the Father to become man and accomplish our salvation. The incarnation means that God is for us. Jesus left the Godhead and all the privileges thereof to die. He lived a humiliating and self-denying life to bring us to God, where there are pleasures forevermore. He veiled his awful and fearful holiness so that we could touch him, see him, know him and love him. No longer does he say, “No man can see my face and live”. Today, he says, “See my face and be satisfied” (Psalm 17:15).

When we live in light of the incarnation of Christ, our lives will be shocking to others. Although we are sons and daughters of the King, we will humiliate ourselves by serving others. All things may be permissible, but we will deny ourselves certain things or activities so that we can grow in our love for God and others. We will earn money, but we will strategize how to give it away for the sake of the kingdom. Living in a physical world, we will spend more effort on cultivating our inner beauty than our outer beauty. We will trust in the promises of God more than our circumstances because we know he is for us. When we live like this, people will think we are ludicrous. They will find our choices shocking. Yet we will point to the miracle of the incarnation of Christ. Our lives will testify to the great news of Advent. That news is this: Christ has come, God is with us.

Bethany Jenkins is the founder of The Park Forum, a New York City based nonprofit that seeks to encourage urban professionals to read the Word daily. Prior to founding The Park Forum, Bethany worked at the New York Stock Exchange, the State Department and in Congress. She received her B.A. from Baylor University, M.A. from George Washington University and J.D. from Columbia Law School, where she served on the editorial board of theJournal of Law & Social Problems, worked at the U.S. Attorney’s Office and summered at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett. Bethany lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and loves running in Central Park and eating french fries. Twitter: @BethanyJenkins

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Read similar articles: The Object of Our Hope by Jonathan Dodson and Mission is Where You Live by Jeremy Writebol.

Download the free Advent devotional, Come Lord Jesus Come by Will Walker and Nathan Sherman.

The Object of our Hope

In the coming weeks, many churches will touch on the themes of Advent: hope, faith, joy, and peace. But our world is riddled with despair, unbelief, sadness, and violence. There seems to be all too many reasons not to have hope, faith, joy, or peace. How does the gospel make sense of this apparent contradiction of Jesus’s birth? Why is the hope of the gospel still relevant even (especially) in this apparently hopeless world? I encourage you to read through the first two chapters of Luke on your own or with your family to contemplate these important questions before reading further.

The Nature of Hope

What is hope? Hope is human—rocks don’t hope. Birds don’t hope. Fish don’t hope. Humans hope. And if we lose hope, we can’t go on living. Hell is a kind of hopelessness, which is why at the entrance to Dante’s Inferno stand the words: “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.” Hope makes all the difference in the world. Hope is not only human; it’s forward-looking, future-oriented. Hope is belief that the future can change the present.

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life. - Proverbs 13:12

Temporal hopes will wax and wane. This very fact shows us that hope is the beat of the human heart. Hope makes all the difference in the world.

The Tension of Hopelessness

First, a word about the word “hope.” In English it possesses a degree of uncertainty. “I hope to make it home by 5.” Uncertain but hopeful.

In the Bible, hope possesses certainty. “Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience." (Rom 8:24-25) or the “full assurance of hope” (Heb 6:11). Biblical hope looks forward in certain anticipation.

If we're honest, we often lack this biblical hope. Perhaps, we even lack normal uncertain hope. Although hope is the heartbeat of every human, our hearts are beating slowly, strangled by the tension of hopelessness. Josef Pieper, a German theologian, wrote a book in the middle of the 20^th century called On Hope, and in it he argued that we all tend toward hopelessness, in one of two directions. Hopelessness, he says, has two forms—despair and presumption—and we all bend one way or the other.

Presumption

Presumption, Pieper writes, “is a premature, self-willed anticipation of the fulfillment of what we hope for from God.” Presumption is a leap into the future, an insistence that the future be the present. It bypasses hope, insisting we have heaven on earth now.

In an edition of Atlantic Monthly a few years ago, the cover article read: Did Christianity Cause the Crash? The article pinned the blame for the housing market crash on Christians who preach and live a prosperity theology. God wants you to be wealthy and healthy. The article was getting at this presumption, this bypassing of Christian hope to insist on the future in the present. So take your house, your car, your clothes, your possessions by faith (whether you can afford it or not)!

The presumption of prosperity theology is that it insists Christians are entitled to the future heavenly blessings of security and prosperity now. They refuse to hope and endure, and tell those who lack security and prosperity that they lack faith. Get that house, regardless of your present income. When the wife of a prosperity preacher was pressed about this as irresponsible, she responded by saying: “But if the Lord is telling you to ‘take that first step and I will provide,’ then you have to believe.” This isn’t a matter of belief, it’s a matter of greed, of inordinate desire for more stuff or more security. So they, we, get into mortgages we can’t afford. How presumptuous.

Now, it’s easy to point the finger, to prosperity presumption, but what about our presumption? Are we insisting on the future in the present? A little heaven on earth? Are you stockpiling assets for your own security? Insisting on a standard of living that is supported, not by hope, but by irresponsible debt? Driving cars we can’t really afford, renting where we don’t belong, paying bills and buying Christmas gifts on the credit card? We try to eliminate hope in our quest for security and wealth.

Presumption refuses hope. It rejects the persevering nature of hope, which makes it so admirable, and as a result, becomes “the fraudulent imitation of hope.” (Pieper) But Christian hope forgoes present joys for the greater future joy. It sacrifices present comfort for the sake of others. It goes not into irresponsible debt but into deliberate generosity. It goes through the cross before entering the new creation. Do our lifestyles reflect hope or presumption? What could you do this Christmas to express true Christian hope?

Pieper notes: “In the sin of presumption, man’s desire for security is so exaggerated that it excels the bounds of reality.” (67). Our material desires are exaggerated beyond reality and beyond God’s promise. God never guaranteed a mansion this side of glory. Somehow we forget that Jesus was a homeless Messiah, who told us that no disciple is above his master (Luk 6:40). Some of us bend toward presumption, a sinful distortion of hope.

Despair

Others of us bend toward despair. Pieper describes despair as “a premature, arbitrary anticipation of the non-fulfillment of what we hope for from God.” Presumption anticipates fulfillment, despair anticipates non-fulfillment. Presumption is overconfident; despair is under-confident. Instead of making a leap into the future, despair sits down in the present, sulking, depressed, and gives up on God. It abandons hope. Instead of bypassing it; despair rejects hope altogether. There is no hope. We spiral down, so far down we can’t look up.

Hope makes all the difference in the world. Without it we can tumble into despair, where we would rather sulk in self-loathing than lift a finger for change. Despair says: “It doesn’t matter what I do, nothing will ever change. I will never succeed.” It’s self-centered, not others-centered. It insists on self. It is a parasite of hope. Despair cannot exist without hope, but it ever remains the cynic, refusing to trust in God’s promises, to look up instead of down. Instead of choosing the persevering, arduous path of hope in the midst of trial, it surrenders to become the antitype of hope. It exaggerates self in the face of God. When it comes to hope, we all fall toward presumption or despair, leaping into the future or settling down in the present. We bypass hope or reject it. Overconfidence or under-confidence. So how do we reclaim biblical hope, enduring confidence in the future that affects the present?

The Story of Hope

Luke 1:67-80 tells a story of hope about a people of hope, the Jews. A people of unparalleled resilience—exodus, exile, holocaust. Of course, Israel swayed between presumption and despair like any people, but there was always a remnant that endured, embracing the difficult path of hope in God. We come upon a faithful Israelite, Zechariah the priest, who is met by an angel and promised a son. He and his wife Elizabeth have been unable to bear a child, a scandal in Jewish society. No doubt they struggled with despair, but God would restore their standing in society with the birth of John the Baptist.

It has been 400 years since the last prophet, Malachi, who prophesied about John. John was the appointed prophet of the 1st century. Now, since Malachi a lot had happened to Israel. Although they lived in their Promised Land, it was not their land. It had been occupied by pagans for centuries. Israel was subject to a series of foreign powers: Persian, Greek, and now Roman. Over the centuries leading up to John’s birth, various Jewish leaders rose up to overthrow the occupying powers. Some of them claimed to be the messiah. Can you imagine what this did to Israel? Up and down, presumption and despair, their hope battered and bolstered over and over again.

Over time, splinter Jewish groups formed. The sectarian Jews withdrew from society, radically  conservative and presumptuous, believing they were God’s special elect people. His new covenant people appointed to usher in the kingdom of God. They were called the Essenes, led by the messianic pretender, the Teacher of Righteousness, whose authority could not be contested. Convinced they were to usher in the Kingdom of God, they prepared for holy war. They were presumptuous. Leaping into the future, they bypassed hope claiming heaven on earth. They were overconfident, disengaged from society. They did not contribute to the social needs of Israel nor did they love their neighbors.

Then there were the secularist Jews, who abandoned faith and integrated into Greek and Roman society, so much that they were indiscernible from the pagans. Non-practicing we might call them. They gave up on God and hope, disillusioned and despairing of any messianic rescue from their enemies. They were under-confident and settled despairingly down into the present, jettisoning hope.

It’s in this context that the prophet, John the Baptist, is born. We are told that when his name was announced the news travelled throughout the hill country of Judea, “and all who heard them laid them up in their hearts saying, ‘What then will this child be?’” A spark of hope rising in the Jewish heart. We die without it. Israel was beginning to come back to life. John’s father, Zechariah, who had despaired and been struck mute for not believing the promise of his son, stands up and, filled with the Holy Spirit, makes a prophecy of hope.

The Object of Hope

Zechariah proclaims, "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us…” (Luke 1:68-71)

The object of hope. Zechariah declares the visitation and redemption of his people, a time referred to by the prophets as the Day of the Lord. And then regarding his son he says: "And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins." (Luke 1:76-77)

Zechariah is so taken with this newfound hope, that he almost neglects his son! Why was John born? To prepare Israel for the Day of the Lord, by giving the “knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins.” Israel had been lingering in unbelief and hopelessness, splintering into presumptuous groups and despairing groups, into sectarian and secularized Jews who either bypassed or rejected hope in God. They found themselves in a predicament with God. Guilty of sinful presumption and despair. How does God respond? Salvation in the forgiveness of sins!

God extends forgiveness for their hopeless presumption. For jumping ahead of him, for pimping him out for security, wealth, and power. For the hopeless, overconfident, self-reliant American who has an exaggerated, idolatrous desire for security and cash, God mercifully extends forgiveness. Forgiveness the person who rids himself of hope in God, and hopes in self-wrought security and happiness. Forgiveness for the person who holds onto his goods or money - refusing to give it away.

If we will turn away from greedy presumption in repentance, we can turn to faith in God’s promise of forgiveness. Then we can hope. We must bank on God, not on his gifts or power. To the hopeless despairing ones, God extends forgiveness for not believing in his promises, if we will unseat ourselves from despair and step into hope.

Wherever you are this Advent season -- despair or presumption -- God in Christ is extending you hope, hope for forgiveness and for healing. Hope in the Son of righteousness, who has risen with healing in his wings. Hope makes all the difference in the world.

Jonathan K. Dodson (MDiv; ThM) serves as a pastor of Austin City Life in Austin, Texas. He is the author of Gospel-Centered Discipleship and has written articles in numerous blogs and journals such as The Resurgence, The Journal of Biblical Counseling, and Boundless. He has discipled men and women abroad and at home for almost two decades, taking great delight in communicating the gospel and seeing Christ formed in others. Twitter: @Jonathan_Dodson

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For a free Advent devotional ebook, check out Come Lord Jesus Come by Will Walker & Nathan Sherman.

For more on the gospel & Christmas, read: Taking in Christmas by Timothy Keller.

An Advent Story

I grew up in evangelical megachurch smack dab on the golden buckle of the Bible Belt. As a kid, I was a little foggy on the meaning of Advent. Like, I knew it meant my friends at evangelical mega-private school would start rehearsing their caroling chops for the Singing Christmas Tree, a perplexing spectacle oddly similar to watching the Star Wars Holiday Special only with extra manger. Then my parents got divorced, and Christmas became a fairly miserable balancing act, which involved dressing up like Norman Rockwell and driving to one house or the other listening to Twisted Sister’s A Twisted Christmas at maximum volume, dead to all the presents and noise and decorations. When I was old enough, I moved out to the mountains, and Christmas just kinda dropped off the radar. It was a good day for snowboarding. The lifts were empty until after lunch.

I’ve gone full circle on a lot of things in my life, but it’s only been by the grace of God that Christmas has been redeemed from out of the morass of consumerism, politics, and nihilism into which it has fallen. Why is Advent important? What changed Christmas for me? I’ll be the first to say my change was a gradual process that began with authentic gospel-centered fellowship, scriptural preaching, and a whole lot of prayer. Which isn’t to say I’m some kinda Grinch. Well, maybe a little. But in more recent years, as I’ve discipled folks in the gospel during the holidays, I’ve come to see a different side of Christmas, one that they don’t make into Hallmark movies, and at the heart of it all is the importance of Advent.

Adventus

Derived from the Latin word adventus, “coming,” Advent marks the beginning of the Western Liturgical Year and commences on Advent Sunday (generally the fourth Sunday before December 25^th). All important stuff  to know if you’re writing that Wikipedia article in your bucket list, but here’s where it gets cool. Adventus is the Latin translation of the Greek word parousia –typically used in reference to the Second Coming of Christ.

For as the lightening comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. – Matthew 24:27

For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. – 1 Corinthians 15:22-23

And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming. – 1 John 2:28

Related terms from the Greek include epiphany variously translated “appearing” or “glorious manifestation” and apocalypse, that oft misunderstood word meaning “revelation” or “to disclose what is invisible.”

So, here’s the thing, forget everything you thought you knew about Advent candles and the local live nativity play and reading Luke 2 at your kids… Wait. Rewind. Don’t forget that stuff, it’s actually important, too. But it’s equally important that we engage with what scripture is saying about the meaning of Christ’s expectation and appearance to us. If we simply focus on the history of Christmas, we are inviting the same host of problems that attended the Pharisees—myopically pouring over dusty scrolls, refusing to see the living God right there in front of them.

Said another way, during Advent we are not simply remembering some fateful event in the past, we’re celebrating a Messiah who was and is and is to come. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever (Hebrews 13:8). There is a special significance in this mystery as we approach the celebration of God’s incarnation. Advent is the time to shout hallelujah for his coming return, to pray to hasten the day that we might see our Redeemer with our own eyes, to fast for revival in our cities, churches, and families.

So, I ask you: how does Advent change if you are the one who’s going to see the Son of God? Can you imagine the wonder such a sight will inspire?—the Christ born of the Spirit, one with God, the hope of the nations? Emmanuel. God is with us. Who can be against us? (Romans 8:31)

On that coming day my eyes will see something sweeter than honey, more precious than gold! Until then, I keep my eyes fixed on that goal—it's a struggle, sure—but all the mall Santa pomp and circumstance goes mute before it.

A Light for Revelation

Luke 2 takes on a new light when I read it with a mindset that it isn’t just some old traditional tale. The story of the Birth of Christ teaches us how to await our own future encounter with Christ. Like Simeon, we look for God’s consolation to this sick and hurting world, we hope in a Living Redeemer, and we too can seek Christ in the Spirit. We, too, can praise him like Simeon, singing, “You are a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.” (Luke 2:32)

Likewise, Advent is an invitation to enter into the story of Christ’s coming, and Christmas is a wonderful time to bear witness to what Christ has done in your life by entering into the excitement of the celebration with your family, friends, neighbors, and fellow disciples.

OK, maybe I was initially a little too hasty to knock the Singing Christmas Thing. Over and over in the gospels we read about folks singing and bearing witness to the Messiah— prophets, prophetesses, priests, shepherds, kings, folks from every segment and class of society—and not just people, angels too. They bring gifts. They sing songs. They celebrate. So, if a Singing Tree is your idea of a party, rock on. I’ll be down at the local children’s shelter tearing up some Guns N’ Roses on the karaoke.

Whatever we wind-up doing during the Christmas season, remember we do it to magnify the King of Kings. We’re also bearing witness to the world about just how deeply the light of God’s love has changed our lives. So while Christmas pickles and mistletoe are fun… it might be time to rethink some of the worn-out ways we wade through the holiday madness. I’m reminded of Simeon’s final words to Mary and Joseph: “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.” (Luke 2:34-35)

Bad example, but I got asked to pray at the office thanksgiving potluck the other day. I remember thinking, ‘I can do this, right? I mean I won’t get arrested?’ And so far the Prayer Police haven’t come for me yet. What I’m saying is Christ pierces right to the heart of things. The Spirit has an absolutely timeless way of revealing the thoughts of many hearts. So, during Advent, pray for the Spirit to guide you to Christ this Christmas. Pray for a revelation of how best to proclaim Christ to your friends, family, fellow believers, and neighbors during this celebratory time of year. The Spirit wanted me to write Christmas poems for my church. So I’m working on that, and yeah, I’m wearing a Santa hat.

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Ben Roberts is follower of Christ & an Editor at both Gospel Centered Discipleship & the speculative literary journal, Unstuck. A graduate of the Michener Center for Writers, he lives in Austin with his wife, Jessica & son, Solomon. They fellowship and worship at Austin City Life.

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For more free article read: Redeeming Worship by Matt Oakes or Rethinking Devotion by  Matt Manry.