Dec 5, 1999
The two
faces of
advent:
This season of preparation for
Christmas called Advent wears two faces: there is the
familiar and encouraging face of the prophecies that a
babe of grace will be born in Bethlehem. In anticipation
of Christ's birth it's appropriate to begin singing
Christmas carols now. The world encourages this
telescoping of Christmas joy and enthusiasm into these
shopping days of Advent.
The other face of Christmas is
more sobering: it is the prophets like Isaiah and John
the Baptist crying from the wilderness: prepare the way
of the Lord. Repent, get sober, get things right, for the
babe of God comes as the Son of God to rule in glory and
as part of his authority to judge in his holiness. In
other words, the Baptist calls us to make a searching and
thorough moral inventory of ourselves. We have
endeavoured to do this in our sharing and thoughts of
prayers of thanks and hopes.
John the Baptist came from the
wilderness but the wilderness is not a familiar theme for
Christmas decorations and preparations. But the
wilderness in spiritual journeys is the most often place
where God prepares his people for something marvelous.
John the Baptist came out of the wilderness to proclaim
the coming of the Messiah. The prophets traditionally
retreated to the desert and mountain wilderness of Israel
to draw renewed strength for their duties. Jesus went
into the wilderness for forty days to get clear his
mission in life.
I hope everyone of us feels
somewhat uncomfortable as we get ready for
Christmas.
If so, we are experiencing some
of that wilderness which God means to be a blessing
rather than a bane upon us. And it is from the zone of
being uncomfortable, of having made a moral inventory,
that we can most appropriately now proceed to the Lord's
Table where wilderness and Bethlehem, sobriety and
celebration, reflection and exuberance, come together.
God has great gifts to give us all. Communion is now our
foretaste of His grace.
Pastor Gene
Preston
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