Coming from a Fundamentalist Baptistic background, the season of Advent hasn’t meant a whole lot to me. Now that our family has been Presbyterian for about 5 years now that’s seeming to change because of the change of emphaisis on how we view the story of God’s redemption. For some reason the Holy Spirit has seen fit to open my eyes and heart to all of the beautiful aspects of what the Season of Advent means. Allow me to explain.
Advent means “expectation”. Was Jesus expected, or does it just make for a good story on the 25th of December? The sad truth is that many Christians neglect their Old Testaments and just study the New. This is sad because if that is what you are doing then you are missing the entire buildup of expectation until the glorious appearing of the Messiah. You miss why Eve expected her firstborn son to be the one God promised, you miss the expectation Abraham felt when he said “God will provide for himself a sacrifice”, you miss the expectation of the King to sit on David’s throne, and on and on.
But on top of all of the expectation we usually read about disappointment after disappointment, and you’re left wondering, “is anyone ever going to get it right?” When will everything work out, or are we stuck in this cycle of failure forever? Then we read the story of the arrival of the Messiah, the Christ child, and its almost as if your soul lets out a great big sigh of relief and says “Finally! He’s here and he’ll get it right where everybody else failed so badly!” The word Israel in Hebrew means “God’s Prince” or “God’s Beloved”. But we know from all of the stories of Israels failure that another prince would have to come to fulfill God’s Law and His expectations.
We hear the answer to that big gap in the OT when in Mathew 3:17 God thunder from Heaven “THIS is my beloved Son in whom I am WELL PLEASED!” Finally, HE’s here!
May your heart experience great joy from this season of Advent.
