[Quick now:
How many birthdays have you had? The answer is later on down. Hint: Most of us get it wrong.]
ADVENT is normally described as "Holy Waiting", having patience, preparing for the arrival of Jesus.
For a long time, my questions has been: "Why do we wait for something that is already here?" Is it an example of Christmas-time "parental control” to make us behave? Is it just Tradition?
Is it some sort of collective amnesia or simply a tradition that must be kept? Is Advent really about patience and waiting or is there something more going on?
The words “…was and is and is to come” havealways puzzled me as a child. Hearing them in worship sounded like some sort of mystical chant.
Years later I began to glimpse a deeper and more expansive meaning. And that evolving meaning has opened up a world of understanding about why and how we celebrate Advent.
For me in Advent, other scripture began to be associated with Jesus:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God.
All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.
What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it.” (John 1:1-5)
And in Revelation 1:8:
“‘I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”
All during the year we proclaim that “Jesus is with us” and “God always cares for us and the whole world.” So why do we shift all that into the future as we look forward to the celebration of the Birthday of Jesus.
We know it’s not the Birthday of Jesus. That was about 2000 years ago.
[Answer to how many birthdays have you had? ONE… all the rest were celebrations of your birth.]
As Christians we proclaim that Christ IS with us, that God is CONTINUALLY in love with us, and that we LIVE HERE AND NOW in the Unconditional Love of the Holy Spirit!
Yet we pause and put that all aside in order to remember the suffering, the longing and the anticipation that the Jewish people for the coming of the MESSIAH, the Savior.
The BIG event in the life of the world was not the birth of Jesus.
In fact neither the “Good News” (Gospel) of Mark or John even mention the birth.
It was the Resurrection that made real to the world that the Messiah had arrived, had walked among us and had conquered not just the Roman Armies, but death itself!
The birth of Christ was a glance back to the “origin story” and remember that it had rumblings of the Resurrection with Angelic messengers, a young woman’s trust and faith, attention from eastern outsiders, and yes, even a slaughter of innocents.
It's a birth worth remembering, and reflecting upon, but always through the lens of the risen Christ, the MESSIAH.
It’s only when we recapture the deeper hopes and dreams of an oppressed people longing for a Messiah that we begin to live out the deeper gift of Jesus the Christ/Messiah. (“Christ” being the Greek translation of the Hebrew “Messiah.”)
So as we light the candles of HOPE, PEACE, LOVE, JOY and the Christ (MESSIAH) candle, let us not just put ourselves into a mindset of waiting, but into a mindset of ALREADY, NOT YET and ALWAYS!
First... "ALREADY": God is with us! (Emmanuel) It is on God’s initiative to love us unconditionally and bring us a “taste of Heaven”, an opportunity to live NOW on the “porch of heaven” surrounded by the Holy Spirit.
Then... "NOT YET": The final, perfect presence of Jesus is yet to be. In the meanwhile, our understanding of this great mystery of God’s love in Jesus the Christ is that our thought and actions may begin to work out God's will, but they are incomplete and need to grow every hour and every minute. (And this is, by the way, the reason that we fashion reminders and feasts (Advent/Christmas activities) with family and friends, we share with extravagant generosity with ALL our neighbors (even the less fortunate ones and EVEN our ENEMIES!)
And finally..."ALWAYS": affirming that the heavenly love of God’s most Holy Spirit has not only BEEN with us, and IS with us, but will abide with us for all time.
In our lives, we have never really been alone, we’ve just pretended that we were.
As we live in the bright side of the Cross, let us always choose to walk in that light of Jesus, the Christ, the MESSIAH.
Have a Glorious Celebration of the Birth, Resurrection and Eternal presence of the Messiah.
And may you live as a “Citizen of Heaven” (Phil 3:20) always and eternally!
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