The Waiting of Advent

"The Advent season is a season of waiting, but our whole life is an Advent season, that is, a season of waiting for the last Advent, for the time when there will be a new heaven and a new earth."
—Dietrich Bonhoeffer in God is in the Manger

It's that time of year again—what the songs describe as "the most wonderful time of year." The time of year when we deck the halls, attend parties and plays, wrap presents, and bake cookies. It's the Christmas season.

For believers, this season is a time of remembrance and celebration. We call these weeks leading up to Christmas "Advent." The word "advent" is derived from a Latin word meaning “coming” or “arrival.” These weeks are a time of anticipation. Of expectation and preparation and looking forward to something hoped for. It's a time to rejoice over God's goodness and faithfulness in fulfilling his promise to redeem us from sin. It's a time to dwell on the incarnation of Christ and what it means that our Savior was born to die.

What this means is, Advent is a time of waiting.

I don’t know about you, but I spend much of my life waiting for something: for the light to change, for a response to my text or email, for the nurse to call my name. I wait for hard things, like answers to medical tests and for good things, like a vacation to start. I wait for dreams to come true and for prayers to be answered. 

Really, the Christian life is one of waiting. We live in the in-between, a time between Christ's ascension and his promised return. We wait for Christ to come again and make all things new. We wait for his glory to be revealed and his promises fulfilled. We wait for eternity where we will live forever worshiping our Savior.

To be honest, I’m not the best at waiting. I am impatient. I want time to speed things up and for things happen. I want things to take place on my time table, according to my plan. This means I often look at waiting as wasted time—time that could be used doing other things. I don’t see waiting as productive and important in and of itself.  I treat it like a no-man's land, a purgatory of sorts between where I've been and where I want to go. 

However, the Bible encourages waiting and speaks of it as a positive thing, particularly a specific kind of waiting: waiting on the Lord.

• "The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD" (Lam. 3:25-26).

• "From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides you, who acts for those who wait for him" (Is. 64:4).

• “Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the LORD!” (Ps. 27:4).

Waiting doesn't mean not doing anything. It doesn't necessarily entail idleness or sitting still. In the Bible, waiting is a posture of the heart. It's a humble reliance upon the One who rules all things and holds all things together. It's living out the knowledge that God is good and faithful and will always be so. Biblical waiting requires hope and trust in our steadfast God.

These days of Advent remind us that waiting is a good thing. As we spend time this season remembering God’s promises in the Old Testament and how they were fulfilled in the New, we see how God works in the waiting. We see how God is faithful and always keeps his promises. We see that he meets his people’s needs at just the right time. And that his Word always comes to pass.

In the passage above from Lamentations, waiting is described as "the soul who seeks him." This means there is work to be done in our waiting, important soul work. While we wait for the Lord to move in our life, to answer our prayers, to return again in glory, we are to seek him. We seek him through prayer and through his word. We seek him by looking for his glory—by being alert and aware to his work in this world. By seeing his hand of providence in all things.

And we wait for him with hope. Like a child on Christmas Eve who can't fall asleep, excited for Christmas morning, we wait for our Father with great expectation. We anticipate the good things he will do. We do so because we know the character and ways of the One for whom we wait.

Yes, waiting can be hard. But it’s the way of life for a Christian. As we practice a brief season of waiting this Advent season, may it remind us what it looks like to live out a life of waiting. For we wait on a good and faithful God.

Photo by Laura Nyhuis on Unsplash

When the Holidays are Hard

It’s that time of year again. A season filled with parties and twinkling lights and gift giving. A time of concerts and plays and cookie exchanges. A time of fa-la-la-la-la and good cheer. Over these next few weeks, people who would ordinarily not make eye contact with strangers, will wish every passing person a “Merry Christmas.” We’ll mail out dozens of annual photo cards with smiling faces and belt out our favorite version of All I Want for Christmas.

In the midst of all this merriment are those for whom the Christmas season is not filled with cheer. For some, the holidays are downright hard and a month long season of festivity feels like an eternity. This is true for the lonely—those whose family live far away or who don’t have a place to go for Christmas. It’s true for those who’ve just endured a painful loss and can’t imagine Christmas dinner without their loved one seated at the table. The holidays are also hard for those who can’t make ends meet and can’t bear to show up at the annual office party empty-handed.

On the outside it may seem like everyone is holly and jolly, but the truth is, the holidays are hard for many.

Might the gospel have something to say to those who are hurting this holiday season? After all, isn’t that what Christmas is about? Isn’t it a celebration of the Light of the World cutting into the darkness of fallen humanity? Isn’t it about peace consuming the chaos? Isn’t it about hope for the hopeless?

While we tend to soften the harsh edges of the Christmas story, the incarnation is filled with hard circumstances. A poor teen girl learns she is to bear the Messiah by a miraculous conception and her fiancé nearly breaks things off, until an angel intervenes. The young couple travel to Bethlehem for a mandatory census just as she is about to give birth and can’t find a place to stay. With no other option, she delivers her baby among the animals in a stable. God incarnate leaves the glorious throne room of heaven, takes on human flesh, and enters a place filled with the smells of hay and the sounds of donkeys and sheep. Before long, they have to flee to Egypt because a mad-man wants the promised child dead. The sounds of sorrow echo throughout Israel as every child two and under is killed in the hopes of finding and ending the life of the One who would deliver his people.

The prophet Isaiah describes the life of this God-man, one filled with sorrow and suffering:

“For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 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: 2-5).

This means we have a Savior who knows and understands all our sorrows for he is the Man of Sorrows. He doesn’t just know about it; he came to bear all that we carry—all the loneliness, grief, and painful memories. The fears of not having enough. The shame of what we’ve done and what’s been done to us. And above all, he came to take away the guilt of all our sin. Jesus Christ lived the life we could not live and died the death we deserved. He was pierced, crushed, chastised, and wounded for us.

The gospel tells us that our Savior came for all those reasons that make the holiday season so hard for us. He came to bring peace and healing, redemption and hope. This means that in the midst of all that is hard, we have joy in Jesus Christ. He is our comfort in a world filled with sorrow. “…his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Is. 9:6).

When everyone around us is filled with good cheer and it’s all we can do to keep the tears at bay, the very One whom we celebrate knows each of those tears. He knows what it is to grieve, to endure temptation, to face poverty, to experience rejection. “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15). Jesus Christ is Immanuel, God with us, which means he is present with us in all our trials and troubles. He is present with us during this holiday season. We can cry out to him and voice all those things we can’t voice anywhere else. He hears and knows and will surround us with his help and grace.

When the holidays are hard this season, let us turn our hearts to the story of the incarnation. Let us remember the story of our Savior who, “though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:6-8). No one understands the depths of our sorrows as the Man of Sorrows himself. And only he has done something about it.

While the Christmas season may be hard, it is not without joy. May our tears mingle with songs of joy as we celebrate the birth of our Savior.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

The Gift of the Incarnation

What’s the best gift you’ve received? Perhaps it was your first bike, complete with a basket, bell, and fringe hanging from the handles. Maybe it was the doll you long wanted, the one that came with a matching outfit for you to wear. Or maybe it wasn’t something wrapped in a box, but an experience like a visit to Disney or to watch your favorite team play.

This time of year, gifts are on our mind. We have our lists and we check them twice. We search the stores—or these days, virtual stores—for just the right gift for all our family and friends. The Christmas season is a celebration of the greatest gift of all: God himself. Immanuel. God in the flesh.

An excerpt from my book, A Holy Fear:

What is striking is that the great I AM—the One who has no beginning or end, the One who flung the stars in the sky, the One who is surrounded by creatures who cannot look on His face, the One who could not let Moses see His face and live—wrapped Himself in human flesh and dwelt among us: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). God incarnated as a human baby, woven in the womb and born of the virgin Mary.

The incarnation is a wondrous act that, when considered, brings forth awe and wonder. Jesus Christ is the second person of the Trinity, equal with the Father and the Holy Spirit. He always is and always was. He was there before time began, when He and the Father determined to save His people from their sins. He was there at creation, when our triune God brought life into being. Paul tells us in Philippians 2 that Jesus did not consider that equality something to cling to, as a reason not to serve, but He left the halls of heaven to come to earth and took the form of a servant. He entered this world not as a king but as a baby. He lived not in a palace but in a village as a carpenter’s son. As Isaiah described Him:

He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. (Isa. 53:3)

In the incarnation, Jesus did not give up His deity, for He was fully God and fully man. As the God-man, Jesus could do what we could not do: obey the law of God. And in so doing, He became the perfect sacrifice for our sin: “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21).

The incarnation was the only way to rescue and redeem us. It was the only way to bring us back into the presence of God. It was the only way to make us His own. What wonder! What a miracle! What mystery! As John Calvin wrote:

It was his task to swallow up death. Who but the Life could do this? It was his task to conquer sin. Who but very Righteousness could do this? It was his task to rout the powers of world and air. Who but a power higher than world and air could do this? Now where does life or righteousness, or lordship and authority of heaven lie but with God alone? Therefore our most merciful God, when he willed that we be redeemed, made himself our Redeemer in the person of his only-begotten Son.[1]

What’s even more amazing is that Jesus Christ reigns in heaven in His resurrected body. He remains enfleshed. Consider the significance that God would not only incarnate to live and die for us but that He would remain the God-man for eternity—scars and all.

This Christmas, may we take time to pause and dwell on what it means that God became flesh. And may we rejoice at the gift of Jesus Christ, born to save.

1 John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960), 2.12.3.

Isaiah 9 and the Names of Jesus

Our first year of homeschooling, we spent the month of December learning the names of Jesus. I had each name printed out on a strip of paper and over the course of the month, we made a paper chain which we then hung in our school room. It was a sweet time of learning about and focusing on the God who took on flesh and dwelt among us.

It’s been a few years since then (sadly, more than a few!) and I thought it was time to once again study the names of Jesus this Advent. A few of the names we’ll look at come from Isaiah 9.

The Prophecy of Christ in Isaiah 9

During Advent season, we often read the prophecy about Christ found in Isaiah 9. It’s a beautiful prophecy and one where several names are mentioned. I can almost hear a choir echoing these same words which inspired Handel’s famous work:

“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6).

This passage mentions four names: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace. To understand these names, it’s helpful to look at them in the context of Isaiah 9 and of Isaiah as a whole.

In the preceding chapters, Isaiah has warned God’s people of impending judgement. They have sinned in their rampant idolatry. Over and over we read accounts in the Old Testament of Israel’s evil kings. Occasionally, a godly king would reign and destroy all the idols and restore worship as God prescribed, but the next generation would again return to their idolatrous ways. God sent Isaiah to warn of their pending punishment, given through the hands of invading armies. Isaiah’s prophecy is frightening and filled with darkness, despair, and woe. Yet in chapter nine, the prophet bursts into the middle of his gloomy foretelling with good news.

There will be a child.

God’s grace would cut into the course of history and a ruler would be born. But he wouldn’t be just any ruler. He wouldn’t be like all the rulers listed so far in the book of Isaiah, those ones who led their people astray, who followed the ways of the world and defiled God’s house. This ruler would be Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Wonderful Counselor

As a counselor myself, I’ve always been intrigued by the name of Counselor in this verse. This name doesn’t connote the same meaning as what we think of when we think of a counselor. It doesn’t mean Jesus is our therapist. It doesn’t refer to him being a good listener (though he certainly does listen to us). It doesn’t have to do with his empathy or compassion (though he has an abundance of both). Rather, it refers to his wisdom, a wisdom far and above that of human wisdom. “And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD” (Isaiah 11:2). In fact, he would be Wisdom incarnate: “who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30). It is in this Wonderful Counselor “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:3).

As John Calvin notes: “the Redeemer will come endowed with absolute wisdom…It is not, therefore, because he knows all his Father's secrets that the Prophet calls him Counselor, but rather because, proceeding from the bosom of the Father, he is in every respect the highest and most perfect teacher.”

This Wonderful Counselor would be wisdom for us, fearing and obeying God in our place. He would be a ruler who would not run and hide from evil, as some rulers have done. He would not be a ruler who would yield and conform to evil, as other rulers have done. He would instead face and confront evil with perfect wisdom. He would then conquer it forever through his blood shed on the cross.

Mighty God

This promised ruler wouldn’t just be a mighty man, a warrior with great strength and might. Though a son and descendant of the mighty warrior, King David, this ruler would not be merely a human king; rather, he would be a divine ruler. The name Mighty God means “God is a warrior.” God himself would step into the battle and fight for his people.

As Paul reminds us, our battle is not against flesh and blood, but “against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12). We need the strength found in a Mighty God to fight these battles. Left to our own, we could not win against such forces, but with Christ we are more than conquerors.

Everlasting Father

In ancient times, a king was considered the royal father of the nation. The name Everlasting Father does not mean the Father of the Trinity, but a father in terms of being a caring protector of his people, as an earthly king is a protector of his people. This ruler-to-come would watch over and protect his people. And unlike any of Israel’s previous kings, this king’s dynasty would never come to an end; his is an everlasting rule.

“Behold, the Lord GOD comes with might, and his arm rules for him; behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him. He will tend his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms; he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young. (Isaiah 40:10-11).

Prince of Peace

We always hear songs about peace during Christmas time. It’s something all humanity longs for. Ever since shalom was broken in the Garden, this world has hungered for a return to peace. While most earthly rulers strive to maintain peace, this ruler Isaiah tells us about will usher in real and lasting peace.

Through his perfect life and sacrificial death, Jesus Christ would bring peace between man and God. He would make a way for God’s people to come into his presence once again. “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid” (John 14:27).

As we celebrate once again the birth of the Christ-child, may our hearts bow in humility and gratitude to the King of Kings, to Jesus the Christ, Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.

This is my final blog post for the year. As always, to keep up with my other writings, follow my author page on Facebook.

Merry Christmas to you and yours!

Blessings,

Christina

Singing Mary's Song of Thanksgiving

"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." (Luke 1:46-55)

This familiar Christmas passage is often called Mary's Song or the Magnificat which is Latin for magnify. Mary sings this song in response to Elizabeth's exclamation of blessing to her when she arrived for a visit and when John the Baptist leapt in Elizabeth's womb, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb." Mary sang this song to magnify or to extol God. When we magnify something, we make it bigger, so we can better see it. Like a magnifying glass. Or when someone is put up on the jumbotron at a ball game, so everyone can see their silly dance. In the case of this song, Mary is narrowing in on the greatness of God. She is filled with wonder at what God is doing and can't help but bubble over into praise.

What makes this song all the more remarkable is the challenges and trials she likely went through before her visit to Elizabeth. She had probably been ostracized by many in her community. We don't know how her family responded, but they had every legal right to reject her, or worse. We know from the book of Matthew that Joseph wanted to divorce her after he heard the news of her conception. We should also remember where Israel is in her history. Since the exile, they have not had a king on the throne. The prophets have been silent since Malachi. Romans rule the world and their land. So in many ways, it's a dark time, for Mary and for her people. Yet as we see, she sings a song filled with wonder and thanksgiving…

To read the rest of this post, visit Reformation 21.

Merry Christmas!

"The Advent season is a season of waiting, but our whole life is an Advent season, that is, a season of waiting for the last Advent, for the time when there will be a new heaven and a new earth." —Dietrich Bonhoeffer in God is in the Manger

May you anticipate with joy the last and final Advent.

Merry Christmas to you and yours!

In Christ,

Christina