Advent Today and Everyday

Advent is a tradition said to have begun sometime in the 4th century. The word advent means a time of expectant waiting and hope. This expectant waiting for the birth of Christ is celebrated in many different ways all over the world in Christian communities. While no one knows exactly where or how this tradition began, we do know that in some form it has been carried forward for centuries.

During the time preceeding the birth of Christ the people were waiting for a king to come who would change their circumstances. They were waiting for a messiah that would change their lives, make them into a great nation and free them of the harsh Roman rule they lived under. So, when Jesus came He was not what they expected or wanted. Jesus the Messiah was not what the people had hoped for. Their beliefs, desires, and will for their lives, put their hope in the wrong place, and they missed the Christ in their midst.

Biblical hope is trusting in God’s character and choosing this hope over circumstance. Biblical hope, expectant hope is trusting in and waiting for God to show up in our lives. Martin Luther gave a wonderful description of hope. He said hope is created in despair and changes us. He said hope changes the one who hopes into what is hoped for and the thing hoped for and the person hoping are one. When we place our hope in Christ, our expectant waiting for Him, we are drawn more closely into the presence of God. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Martin-Luther

This season brings us so many wonderful scriptures. The two that I want to touch on are Psalm 130:5-6 and Luke 1:26-38. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%20130%3A5-8&version=ESV#:~:text=Psalm%20130%3A5-8%20English%20Standard%20Version%205%20I%20wait,the%20morning%2C%20more%20than%20watchmen%20for%20the%20morning. https://www.esv.org/Luke+1/

Psalm 130:5-6 describes beautifully the expectant hope of Advent that we can embrace every day. The psalm describes to us how we can wait in His word, and wait with more certainty than a watchmen waits for the morning. We can expectantly hope for and in our Lord with more certainty than we wait for the morning to come! Our Lord who came, who is with us each day, and who will come again!

As we read through Luke 1:26-38, and the coming birth of Christ, God shows us that all we may believe to be impossible is possible in Him. Our God came into His world as one of us, He came to us to save us, He came to us as Jesus Christ, so we would know Him.

Warren Wiersbe an American clergyman, Bible teacher and author wrote that to wait does not mean we do nothing. It means to hope and to look for God for all we need. In our secular society, with all its advertising during the Christmas season telling us just what we need to make us happy and whole we can often find ourselves let down. Its easy to put our expectant hope in things other than Christ. As we embrace Advent this season, let’s remember that we can embrace the expectant hope of Advent every day. We can let our expectant hope of the light of Christ, our Advent hope, into every corner and every day of our lives.

This Advent season and every day let us each give thanks to God, for the gift of His Son, for the gift of our hope, a hope that was realized, a living hope with us each day and a hope that will come again.

To listen to the podcast, Advent This Season and Everyday,click on the following link: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2114739/14063587