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Weeks 1 & 2 of Advent
Let’s begin by first looking at the definition of Advent.
ADVENT is Word with Latin roots, meaning “coming.”
Christians of earlier generations spoke of “the advent of our Lord” and of “His second advent.”
The first phrase refers to God’s becoming incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth.
The latter phrase speaks of Jesus’ second coming.
Grissom, F. A., & Bond, S. (2003).
Advent.
In C. Brand, C. Draper, A. England, S. Bond, E. R. Clendenen, & T. C. Butler (Eds.),
Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary (p.
31).
Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.
There is really 3 advent’s we want to focus on during this season.
The first we mentioned is the coming of Jesus as a baby, that is the first advent.
The second advent that we have yet to mention is the coming of Jesus into our hearts.
How important is that?
If you want to give the best gifts this year, let’s pray for ways personally and as a church that we can share the gift of Jesus this year.
And the third and final advent is Jesus’ second coming.
The three advents of Jesus
Jesus came as a baby.
Jesus comes into your heart.
Jesus is coming agin.
So as we look at the first two weeks of advent this morning, we want to keep all three of these perspectives in mind.
So the first week focuses on hope and if your remember form Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s devotion we read this morning he looks at this first week with the idea of waiting.
I think Hope and waiting go very well together.
Now let’s look at these two Hope and waiting in the context of all 3 advents.
First the birth of Christ what was the world like before Jesus came?
The Jewish people struggled for thousands of years with periods of obedience and long periods of disobedience.
In the Old testament, how did God choose to speak to His people?
Through prophets.
Did the people tend to listen to the prophets?
I find this to be one of the most terrifying passages in all of scripture.
You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirt.
I find that verse terrifying.
I can and I am sure at points have resisted The work of The Holy Spirit in my life.
Let’s look at the final words of the last prophet in the Old Testament.
Now realize after we read these words.
God went silent for 400 hundred years.
Listen closely to His final words.
There is a lot to unpack in these final 6 verses of the Old Testament.
God promises future judgement against the wicked.
He promises a Messiah with “healing in His wings” More on that later, We see the promise of John the baptist.
So after God makes these promises, He goes silent for 400 years talk about waiting.
How many people here want to wait 400 years for a promise to come true?
I will be the first to admit that I struggle with patience.
How do you think the Jewish people felt.
Could you imagine being Zachariah and Elizabeth?
They probably spent their entire married lives praying for a child and yet Elizabeth remained barren.
Their story is amazing.
Listen to Luke 1 verses 5-7
Zachariah was a priest in the division of Abijah.
Wait that sounds familiar doesn’t it?
These are the final words God spoke to HIs people 400 years earlier.
Could you image being Zachariah, He was the one that God broke His silence too.
How awesome would that have been?
But Zacharias had to wait 9 months before he could tell anyone about his experience that day in the Holy place.
Can you image how full of hope he would have been?
He had to realize that his son would fulfill the prophecy and that the long awaited Messiah was coming.
The Messiah that was predicted 4,000 years earlier.
We know that the people were walking in darkness when Jesus came and we that before Jesus comes into our heart we are walking in darkness.
And I am sure we all have people we care about who are walking in darkness but let us wait in hope.
That the light of the world can shine into the darkest of hearts.
This reminds me of a story one of my classmates shared when I attended an evangelism class in Pittsburgh.
We were talking about the fact that no one is beyond the saving grace of Jesus Christ.
My classmate was a Pittsburgh city police officer and he shared the story of a drug dealer in his neighborhood.
They were just waiting to get enough evidence to arrested this guy.
He said he never dreamed of sharing the gospel with this guy he thought he was too far gone.
Then one day everything changed.
Some one shared the gospel with the drug dealer and he came to faith.
I can’t help but think people who cared about him had to be praying for him and waiting with hope that the light of the world would shine into his dark heart and it did.
Don’t ever write anyone off as being to0 far gone.
The love, grace, and mercy can reach anyone.
So during this advent season, let’s wait and pray with hope that the light of the world will shine into the darkness of the hearts of the lost.
The third and final advent is the second coming of Jesus, which is the blessed hope!
As we wait patently for our Lord and Savior to return we wait with hope.
Amen?
This week the focus is on faith and according to Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s devotion it also focuses on mystery.
How do these intertwine?
Let’s explore!
Let’s consider faith and mystery with our first advent, the coming of Jesus as a baby.
The three advents of Jesus
Jesus came as a baby.
Jesus comes into your heart.
Jesus is coming agin.
In closing I want to look at the stories of two women.
One Biblical and one modern day.
And they both revolve around verse 2 of Malachi chapter 4
Let’s first look at the Biblical story.
It’s found in Luke Chapter 8 beginning in verse 43
This woman with bleeding for 12 years would have been an outcast separated from God.
Her bleeding would have made her unclean which ment she was not allowed to attend synagogue or the temple in Jerusalem.
She spent 12 years waiting to be healed and restored to fellowship with God and when she heard about Jesus, the son of righteousness and the fact that He had healing in His wings.
She pressed through the crowed to touch Him.
She reached for the fringe of His garment.
Do you know what that was?
It can be argued that “the wings” in Malachi and the fringe of His garment are the same.
Tallit
Most people here are probably familiar with Joni Erickson Tada’d story But incase your are not.
In 1967 she was 17 years old.
She just graduated high school and was getting ready for college, when she was injured in a diving accident.
She broke her neck and was paralyzed from the neck down.
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