The time of Advent is one of my favorites in the church year. It heralds my favorite holiday of Christmas. Also, it's a forced reminder to slow down and reflect. As I am drawn into this season of waiting and anticipation with you, I wanted to share a reflection on what each week's theme is. Each of the four theme's of advent highlights a different characteristic that Jesus brought into the world.
The first week of advent has the theme of hope.
As the Israelites had been taken into captivity and forced into slavery and then adopted into foreign lands, they were a people desperate for hope. They had been receiving prophecies of a coming Messiah for hundreds of years. With no sign of those prophecies coming to fruition.
They were living in darkness. Some continued to practice the traditions that had been sent to them when Moses was alive. Others had lost any reverence or desire to continue in what seemed an empty and pointless pursuit. The Jews alive during the Savior's birth were living in complete spiritual and emotional darkness. Hope was a dangerous emotion for all of them.
They did it anyway.
Without hope, why do we go on? Without the anticipation of something better there is nothing to go toward. Without hope there is no expectancy of a hard situation getting better. Without hope there is not a promise of a lost cause becoming saved.
Hopelessness = death
Where is your hope in this season of Advent?
It cannot be in your circumstances, for those change. Hope cannot be in a person because they have their own agendas. Hope cannot be in our politics, our religion or in ourselves. Hope is only found in a Creator that came down to Earth so that we can come into relationship with Him.
Emmanuel, God with us.
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