Advent

 
We’re presently in that period of the year that Christians refer to as Advent.  Many churches all around the world will focus for four weeks before Christmas on the theme of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Advent is the time when the Christian Church is making its Christmas preparations.  Of course many people who are not church goers may also be somewhat familiar with Advent because there are some very creative Advent Calendars around that help people in the countdown to Christmas Day.  Stores often have special Advent Calendars for sale with sweet treats for young children.  But apparently older people now want to get in on the act as well.  I saw one such adult advent calendar advertised on the Internet called a ‘Beer Advent Calendar’ – for the bargain price of $185.  This special offer of craft beers was touted as the ultimate countdown to Christmas.  Mind you, I did wonder about the ease of messing up your Advent Calendar by consuming more than the allocated one can of the beer per day!

When I was in the northern hemisphere on Long Service Leave I spoke with people in Europe and North America about the differences in the seasons – that, for example, for us Christmas falls in the summer season.  People in the northern hemisphere find it hard to grasp that for us Christmas is a time for barbeques and beach outings, for summer holidays and end of year school break-ups.  In the Northern hemisphere Christmas comes in mid-winter and few people get more than a couple of public holidays.  Within a week, school there has resumed once more.

In my opinion they have some wonderful advantages – and I don’t just mean that Christmas there often comes complete with snow and log fires.  What I mean is that Christmas for them is a much more uncluttered event.  For us Christmas here in Oz is so often overshadowed by a whole host of important family and social events.  The children have their end-of-year school presentation evenings (to say nothing of the hassle of exams for our teenagers).  For the family, plans are in full swing as to where to go for holidays this summer.  At work there is the winding down of business for the summer closure of the office or the workshop.  In the middle of all that we are also supposed to put up our Christmas decorations, and some of us still take the time to send off Christmas cards to family and friends.  On top of all of that we need to decide on what we are going to spend on Christmas gifts.  So, do we still have time, in the midst of all of that busyness, to focus on the Christmas reality that in Christ Jesus, God Himself came to live our life and die our death?  So often Christmas Day comes and we feel we aren’t really ready for it yet.  And I suspect that an Advent Beer Calendar is not going to help to solve that problem.

The point though is that these four weeks of Advent are meant to draw our attention to the essentials of the Christmas message.  They focus our attention on Jesus who came in Bethlehem to restore a broken and fallen creation.  We take our cue from John the Baptist who called on people to be prepared to meet the Lamb of God who was coming to take away the sins of the world.

Advent literally means ‘coming’, and in the context of Christmas it is His coming as God in order to take to himself a human nature from the Virgin Mary.  However, today the Christian Church thinks not only of the first coming of the Saviour, it thinks also of the second coming of our Saviour and Lord.  When Jesus departed for heaven after His death and resurrection, He promised is followers that He would return and the rest of the Bible makes clear that His second coming will be as Judge of the living and the dead.

It’s bad news when we get to December 25th and we’ve not got done what we needed to get done.  It is infinitely worse if Jesus should come again and we have not made the necessary preparations for His return.  The reality is that Jesus is coming.  The big question is: are you ready for that or not?

John Westendorp
2MaxFM 14/12/2025

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dads

Image
  Recently two young men I know were both unexpectedly taken from this life.   Both had taken their roles as husbands and fathers seriously.   Both had young children still in primary school.   To say that their departures left a huge gap in their respective families would be a massive understatement.   It traumatised not only their immediate families.   Their wider families too were devastated by the loss of a brother, an uncle, a son.   So were the churches in which they had been seriously involved. My heart goes out to their widows.   Being a single mum is not for the faint-hearted – as some of you well know from experience.   I sympathise too with these children who will grow up without a Dad at home.   In such situations it’s always a blessing when an uncle or Granddad or some other significant male steps into the breach.   Of course what helps too is that in both instances this happened in Christian families and Christian ...
Read more

Work

Image
  Two recent experiences with tradesmen brought home two valuable lessons when it comes to our work ethic. Our kitchen sink had become blocked – again.   It was only a little over a year since that had previously happened.   I found myself wondering whether we had a structural problem with our plumbing that caused frequent blockages or whether the previous plumber had not done a very good job in clearing on the previous ocassion.   This plumber asked me, “John, do you want a cheap quick fix or do you want to try and deal with the cause of the problem – which will take a little longer and cost you a little more?”   That was a no brainer for me.   I wasn’t looking forward to annual visits from a plumber, just to keep our kitchen wastewater flowing into the sewers.   So we bit the bullet.   I found it absolutely staggering to see the gunk that our plumber pulled out of our wastewater drain.   Obviously the previous plumber had merely poked...
Read more

Lament...?!?

Image
You don’t need to read much of the Bible’s Psalms to appreciate the raw emotions portrayed by its song-writers.   There’s the whole gamut of emotions – from ecstatic joy, wonder and praise right through to profound sadness, grief and despair. For the former you only have to read the final Psalm which has a whole orchestra, complete with bells and whistles, to express the glorious praises of our God.   The final words from the Psalms are pertinent: “Let everything that breathes praise the Lord.   Hallelujah.” For the latter, just begin with Psalm 3.   King David, persecuted by his own son, Absalom, laments: “Lord, how my foes increase!   There are many who attack me.”   Or what about the terrible sadness of Psalm 22?   It begins with words Jesus took on His lips as He suffered hellish agony on the cross, ”My God, my God, why have you abandoned me.” Speaking to one of my daughters recently, we agreed that these days we don’t do laments very well. ...
Read more