2 PETER 3:3–4, 8–9  Most importantly, I want to remind you that in the last days scoffers will come, mocking the truth and following their own desires. They will say, “What happened to the promise that Jesus is coming again?” . . . But you must not forget this one thing, dear friends: A day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day. The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent. 

Consider This Did you ever make construction-paper Christmas countdown rings as a kid? Using alternating red and green strips, I’d staple them into interlocking rings, one for each day from December 1 until the lone yellow ring for Christmas Day. Each morning at breakfast I’d tear a ring off as our countdown clock: T-minus five days till presents! And remember when the longest day of the year was? The day before Christmas, when there was only one green ring left. That day seemed to take forever. I remember once waking up at around 11:00 at night, believing the time had come and ran through the house literally ringing a bell to wake everyone to come open presents.
My parents were not impressed. “It’s not time yet!” they shouted me back to bed. Dejected, I got under the covers and thought, When is it ever going to happen? We’ve spent the last two weeks preparing for Jesus to return, each day tearing off another ring in preparation. But when is it ever going to happen? It’s been about two thousand years, and the waiting is excruciating: “God, when are you sending Jesus? We’re ready to be rescued here!” But for God, it’s only been a couple of days. Let’s pause and clear up one thing: “A day is like a thousand years to the Lord” is not a key to the secret math formula for predicting Jesus’ return. It’s a simile: a figure of speech where two unlike things are compared using like or as to make an emphatic description. No one knows when it will be, not even Jesus (see Mark 13:32).
Peter is saying that what seems like a long time to wait for us is not all that long to God. In fact, God is being patient. Patience has always been God’s way. After all, the entire Old Testament has God being patient. Think about how much time there was between Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah . . . until John the Baptist announces the arrival of Jesus. What’s evident here is that God has more patience than we do because, “He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent” (v. 9). His patience is for the sake of the lost. But did you catch who his patience is with? I didn’t notice it either. “No, he is being patient for your sake.” God is not being patient with them; he’s being patient with us.
Why would God need to be patient for our sake if we already believe? Just come on and get us out of here, Lord! God is being patient with us because we’re the ones who are supposed to share the good news with those who would otherwise be destroyed. God has patience for the sake of the lost, but he is patient with us because we are the ones who are supposed to be calling them to repentance. In a sense, God’s patience creates an urgency for us to share the good news before the final countdown. This season of Advent is not just for us to prepare for Jesus’ return; it is also a season where we, in the spirit of John the Baptist, call others to repentance . . . our lives like voices in the wilderness shouting:

“Prepare the way for the Lord’s coming! Clear the road for him! The valleys will be filled, and the mountains and hills made level. The curves will be straightened, and the rough places made smooth. And then all people will see the salvation sent from God.” (Luke 3:4–6)
 Speaking of John the Baptist, here is where we make our pivot from the clouds to the cradle; from the end to the beginning, where our story will open on a waiting people asking, “God, when are you sending the Messiah? We’re ready to be rescued here!” Many had become impatient and so moved on. They were going about their business and had forgotten his promise. This means we’re in good company. But as we’re about to see, God always keeps his promises.
CHRIST WAS BORN. CHRIST HAS DIED. CHRIST IS RISEN. CHRIST WILL COME AGAIN!

JOEL 2:12–15 NIV
“Even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.” Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity. Who knows? He may turn and relent and leave behind a blessing— grain offerings and drink offerings for the Lord your God. Blow the trumpet in Zion, declare a holy fast, call a sacred assembly.

Consider This We tend to think of fasting as something we do (if we do it) during Lent. But did you ever notice that the liturgical colors of both Lent and Advent are purple? That’s because Advent traditionally was also a season for repentance (which we’ve talked about) and fasting. But it’s hard to find a rhythm of fasting when all we do is feast. Let’s look at the story of my calendar, starting in a strange place: September. School has just started back, football season is kicking off, and the Halloween costumes and candy are on the store shelves. The increased candy eating begins, weeks before the little ones come knocking on the door. Then, on the first day of November, the Christmas candy and decorations invade everything. For the next couple of weeks, I’ll keep eating Halloween candy, and then I’ll take the third Thursday in November to eat my weight in turkey, sides, and pies. A few days later, just as the leftovers are finally drying up, the Christmas parties, baked goods, chocolatecovered cherries, and candy gift bags will begin to flow. The eating continues long after the big present day, culminating with a New Year’s Eve party and all its excess. By now, much of my diet has consisted of candy, cookies, and rich banquet foods for three solid months. So on that first January morning, I’m going to change everything: time to be a better person. Lose some weight. Live better. Then the first sabotage.
My birthday is in January. Cake. Fancy dinner. I’ll restart after . . . the Super Bowl party the next week. By now the Valentine’s candy is on the shelves, and the girls are bringing home gift bags full of chocolate and candy, with all those heart-shaped boxes of chocolate beating for my affection from the checkout line. And just when I think there’s a break—even though the day after Valentine’s the Cadbury Cream Eggs show up next to the register—it’s all a setup. Like sirens, they call from outside the door to Walmart. They call and I cannot resist. Soon I am crashing into the rocks of Girl Scout cookies. Throw in an obligatory St. Patrick’s Day green beer and all the Easter candy, and whatever goals I set in January are dead in the spring, even as the flowers are coming to life. Memorial Day kicks off the cook-out season, with the Fourth of July being the biggest blast of them all. And so, by late summer, just as the tomatoes and cucumbers we planted in the backyard in the hopes of eating healthy and homegrown are fully ripening, the cycle is ready to start again. Back to school, and back to the Halloween candy on the shelves. It makes sense that we are trapped in rabid consumption. After all, our mission failure began when someone ate something. A moment of instant gratification that broke humanity and all of creation. Jesus didn’t say,
“if you fast” but “when you fast” (see Matthew 6:16). We’re called to it. But we don’t fast to earn our salvation, prove our faithfulness, or manipulate God into answering our prayers. We fast to make a spiritual declaration that instant gratification will not control us, and to awaken us to our dependence on God. Fasting during Advent is hard because everything around us this time of year is about eating more than ever.
But Advent reorients us to God’s rescue mission, which is grounded in self-giving instead of self-gratifying. No, the kind of fasting I want calls you to free those who are wrongly imprisoned and to stop oppressing those who work for you. Treat them fairly and give them what they earn. I want you to share your food with the hungry and to welcome the wanderers into your homes. Give clothes to those who need them, and do not hide from relatives who need your help. (Isa. 58:6–7 NLT 1996) It’s not easy to do in an all-you-can-eat culture. Fasting for a lot of us is like New Year’s resolutions. We fail once and call it quits. So try fasting for one day a week . . . maybe just one meal during that one day and take the time you’d eat to pray and read Scripture. After all, people don’t live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. One day Jesus will return, and we will all feast at his heavenly banquet table. Until then, let’s prepare by calling a fast.
CHRIST WAS BORN. CHRIST HAS DIED. CHRIST IS RISEN. CHRIST WILL COME AGAIN!

MATTHEW 6:31–34
“So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need. “So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” 

Consider This Let’s stay with the crew of Apollo 13 and their mission to survive. We’ve looked at their story as an illustration of repentance as course correction. But we said there was something else needed to get them home that could shed some Advent light for us. What is it? Shutting down. When their oxygen tank exploded, it didn’t just affect their trajectory, it also affected their systems. Their broken systems were draining too much power and threatening their life support. In order to survive to reentry, the three astronauts would have to shut down the computer and electrical systems, then figure out how to resequence them to power back up. If they didn’t, they would run out of power before they made it back to Earth. What does all this have to do with Advent?
Well, if Advent is a season of repentance, part of that process is looking at what systems are threatening our life support, and then shutting them down. And I’d argue the system that most threatens our life support as believers is fear. I’ve noticed that so many Christians are drained by fear. Some of the most fearful people I know are Christians. Not a prayer request session goes by without someone sharing a fear of what the world is coming to.
I’m not trying to minimize the fact that when we look at the news, there’s a lot to cause anxiety, but aren’t we the people Jesus explicitly told to not be afraid? Like with Eve in Eden and Jesus in the wilderness, the enemy plants seeds of doubt: “Did God really say that?” (see Genesis 3:1 and Matthew 4:1–11).
But the brokenness of fear drains our life support, threatening our very love and joy and peace and patience and gentleness. Fear drains us, causing us to either attack or self-medicate. This leaves us with anger at what’s happening around us, hatred of people different than us, and ultimately the suffering of our lives and souls, and those of others. Fear is a broken system that needs to be shut down and resequenced. What are the fear systems draining your life support, and how do they do it? For me, it can look like spending five minutes in prayer, but three hours in cable news, social media, and talk radio. What would shutting that down and resequencing look like? And how would it affect the life support of my soul? Advent is all about the mission, and the mission needs power. Maybe shutting down is really the way to power up. I’ll let the psalmist have the last word today: Come, see the glorious works of the Lord: See how he brings destruction upon the world. He causes wars to end throughout the earth. He breaks the bow and snaps the spear; he burns the shields with fire. “Be still, and know that I am God! I will be honored by every nation. I will be honored throughout the world.” (Ps. 46:8–10) But as we’ll see next, there’s more to resequencing than shutting down.
CHRIST WAS BORN. CHRIST HAS DIED. CHRIST IS RISEN. CHRIST WILL COME AGAIN!

HEBREWS 10:23–25
 Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near. 

Consider This We defined repentance as reorienting to the right path. If Advent is the season where we can reorient ourselves to Jesus and his final mission for the world, then what does that repentance look like?
Remember the story of Apollo 13, the spacecraft carrying three astronauts to the moon when an oxygen tank exploded? Their mission immediately changed. They were no longer going to land on the moon. Their new mission was to stay alive and get back to Earth. But were they even going the right way? To navigate their way home, the crew needed to locate certain stars and constellations. But when they looked out the window, they saw thousands of false stars created by debris from the explosion. They couldn’t tell the real stars from the fake ones. They had to reorient using the sun, and it took all three of them to do it. One on the navigation controls, one checking the crosshairs on the telescope, and one looking out the window to call out when the sun came around. But then their trajectory kept shifting off course. If they were just a tiny degree off course now, they’d miss the Earth completely by 200,000 miles. Each minute they were getting closer to Earth, and so they needed an immediate course correction. And again, it would take all three of them to do it. One timing how long to burn the engines, one steering the ship left and right, and one steering it up and down.16 This wasn’t how they were supposed to fly their spaceship, but it worked. What does all this have to do with repentance? The trajectory of our sin may seem small now, but down the road it can have devastating consequences. Repentance is about course correction.
It is less about what we’re moving away from and more about Who we’re moving toward. And the key to course correction is that we can’t do it alone: “Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results” (James 5:16). Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble. Likewise, two people lying close together can keep each other warm. But how can one be warm alone? A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken. (Ecc. 4:9–12)
I’m in what John Wesley called a discipleship band with two other guys. At Seedbed we define a discipleship band as three to five people who read together, pray together, and meet together to become the love of God for one another and the world. Even though we live in different states, we conference call every week and share the state of our soul, what possibilities there are in our lives for transformation, and what’s in the way. We confess sins, admit temptations, grieve with each other, celebrate with each other, and speak into each other’s lives.
To learn more about discipleship bands and how to get into one, check out www.discipleshipbands. Our trajectories keep going off course away from Christ. So like the three astronauts side by side in the Apollo capsule, we call out to each other. We help each other see what the other can’t as we navigate through the fake lights of this world, pointing each other’s trajectory back toward Christ. They are my mission crewmates. That’s what real repentance looks like. Remember, Advent is about the final stage of God’s new mission that resulted from our mission failure. Repentance as course correction is how we get on board. But trajectory and course correction are only part of the story. There was something else needed to get our astronauts home, and it’s something we need, too. CHRIST WAS BORN. CHRIST HAS DIED. CHRIST IS RISEN. CHRIST WILL COME AGAIN!

MATTHEW 3:1–3  
In those days John the Baptist came to the Judean wilderness and began preaching. His message was, “Repent of your sins and turn to God, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.” The prophet Isaiah was speaking about John when he said, “He is a voice shouting in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord’s coming! Clear the road for him!’”

Consider This We’re halfway through our Advent mission, so let’s take a look at our trajectory so far. We remember that Advent breaks into our present darkness with hope from the future, where Jesus will come back to remake the world he created. Until he comes back, we are to live as though it’s already happened, bringing the good news to everyone. Sounds simple enough. So then why aren’t we there yet? I think it’s more mission failure. We mean well, and we want to follow Jesus in his mission now. But our sins, brokenness, and distractions keep pushing us off course, leaving us wondering where we’re going. So what do we do? We begin where the prophet John did when he announced Jesus’ mission with repentance: Repent of your sins and turn to God, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near. Remember, Advent is a season to help us reorient our lives to Jesus, and repentance is where we start. The problem is, many of us have a distorted definition of repentance. We tend to think of it as feeling guilty for what we’ve done, promising not to do it again, and then working hard at behavior management to keep that promise. We look at repentance as walking away from something, but actually repentance is reorienting us to something. In this case, someone.
John’s idea of repentance would have been formed by its Hebrew word shub, which means, “To turn back and retrace your steps, in order to return by the right way.”15 Here’s what that looks like: I have no sense of direction. None. Zero. Even when the sun is setting, I get confused which way is west. I get lost in my own house. It’s even worse on the road, especially if I have to go to a new part of town. “It’s just a couple of minutes north of the mall,” my wife will say. 15. Achtemeier, ed., The HarperCollins Bible Dictionary. Okay. I’ve been to the mall . . . I can do that. I pass the mall . . . it’s been two minutes. Or was it two miles? Now it’s been five minutes. Now seven. Now I’m in another town. Turn around. Go back by the right path. Wait—that McDonald’s looks familiar. I think I should have turned there. Make another turn. Two minutes. Four. Six. Not it. Turn around. Go back by the right path. Once, when driving from Dallas to Tulsa, I made a pit stop halfway through the trip. I got back on the highway and drove for another hour. As I crossed the state line back into Texas, I realized I had turned south instead of north. Yep . . . one hour in the wrong direction. Turn around. Go back by the right path. Before the iPhone, I would have stopped at a gas station for directions after the third or fourth U-turn. Now I pull over and try to figure out where the little blue dot on Google Maps says I am. But sometimes I go a while before I realize I’m not where I was intended to be. I asked my wife how she always knows which way we’re going, can find a new way to get there, and still never get lost. “Easy,” she said, “I just remember which way is north, and then I can tell which roads will go what direction to get me there.” “I wish I could do that,” I said. She pointed at the little digital compass mounted in my rearview mirror and said I can always start there to reorient myself. This is why we take a season, not just a day, to prepare for Christ’s return. Because repentance is not about working up more guilt or a redoubling of sin management efforts. Repentance is remembering and reorienting ourselves to the right path, which is Jesus . . . who is the way, the truth, and the life. It’s a constant stopping and turning around on the highway of holiness. But we can’t do it alone.
CHRIST WAS BORN. CHRIST HAS DIED. CHRIST IS RISEN. CHRIST WILL COME AGAIN!

EPHESIANS 1:7–10 |
He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins. He has showered his kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding.  God has now revealed to us his mysterious will regarding Christ—which is to fulfill his own good plan. And this is the plan: At the right time he will bring everything together under the authority of Christ—everything in heaven and on earth. 
Consider This The last couple of chapters we’ve looked at our Advent mission as acts of social justice in the world. But this is a good time to pause and look carefully at our trajectory. Today’s text reminds us that the final mission plan is not only works of justice, but for everything in heaven and earth to be brought together in Christ. Early in Advent we looked at how Jesus is the One who created all of this so of course his final mission will be to bring it all together in himself. In other words, Advent is more than social justice awareness month. The truth is we don’t need a gospel message for social justice. Even the pagans are for that. I’ve been a part of several interfaith services, and the one thing they all have in common is prayers for peace and calls for justice. Don’t get me wrong . . . it’s a good thing, but what does it really mean? Does peace mean the absence of conflict? No more war? No more political Twitter trolling? Partially . . . but in Scripture peace means so much more than that. Remember, the word is shalom, and it means wholeness and well-being—the ideal state of humanity, both individual and communal—as a gift from God. It’s what we had and lost in Eden, and Advent reminds us that it’s only found again in Jesus Christ. As Paul says: For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ, and through him God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ’s blood on the cross. (Col. 1:19–20)
Advent aims to deepen our mission understanding of “for God so loved the world that he sent his only Son,” and widen our orbit beyond only social justice. As Andy Crouch writes: Attempt to bring justice without Jesus, and you may not even get justice. You will certainly not get justice the way the Bible understands it—the restoration of all things to their created fruitfulness with the One who made them. . . . If you follow Jesus, he will use you to bring justice. If you want justice—follow Jesus. Because what we’re aiming for is, “After this I saw a vast crowd, too great to count, from every nation and tribe and people and language, standing in front of the throne and before the Lamb. They were clothed in white robes and held palm branches in their hands. And they were shouting with 1 a great roar, ‘Salvation comes from our God who sits on the throne and from the Lamb!’” (Rev. 7:9–10) So next we should probably talk about how to get into mission mode.
CHRIST WAS BORN. CHRIST HAS DIED. CHRIST IS RISEN. CHRIST WILL COME AGAIN!

ISAIAH 35:1–6 |
Even the wilderness and desert will be glad in those days. The wasteland will rejoice and blossom with spring crocuses. Yes, there will be an abundance of flowers and singing and joy! The deserts will become as green as the mountains of Lebanon, as lovely as Mount Carmel or the plain of Sharon. There the Lord will display his glory, the splendor of our God. With this news, strengthen those who have tired hands, and encourage those who have weak knees. Say to those with fearful hearts, “Be strong, and do not fear, for your God is coming to destroy your enemies. He is coming to save you.” And when he comes, he will open the eyes of the blind and unplug the ears of the deaf. The lame will leap like a deer, and those who cannot speak will sing for joy! Springs will gush forth in the wilderness, and streams will water the wasteland. 
Consider This In this text, the prophet Isaiah tells the story of a people freed from their slavery to the consequences of sin. Looking to the future, he says the rescue of humanity, and the restoration of God’s kingdom, would be when the eyes of the blind were opened, the ears of the deaf were unstopped, and the lame leaped like deer. In the New Testament, when John the Baptist was in prison, he sent a message to Jesus and asked if he was the Rescuer (see Matthew 11:2–3). Was he bringing the kingdom, or would it be someone else? What’s interesting is that Jesus doesn’t just answer yes or no, he responds by subversive code: John the Baptist, who was in prison, heard about all the things the Messiah was doing. So he sent his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the Messiah we’ve been expecting, or should we keep looking for someone else?” Jesus told them, “Go back to John and tell him what you have heard and seen—the blind see, the lame walk, those with leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the Good News is being preached to the poor.” (Matt. 11:2–5) There’s a tension here called the “already/not yet.” Jesus is on the scene to establish his kingdom by his life, death, resurrection, and ascension. But it will not be fully realized until he returns.
We call this the “already/not yet” because his kingdom is already here, but it has not yet had final victory. We’re waiting for Jesus to return, and waiting is active. Into this tension Advent gives us our mission. To illustrate what this looks like consider the story of the Underground Railroad: The secret network of individuals, groups, churches, and others who helped slaves escape from the South to the North and Canada. Though Abraham Lincoln had not yet delivered the Emancipation Proclamation, the people of the Underground Railroad lived as though it had already happened, and so worked to free as many slaves as they could, usually by subversive means. One such story of subversion is the tale of Dr. Alexander Ross. After a conversation with an abolitionist, a convicted Dr.  Ross became creative in helping slaves escape by pretending to be a scientist studying birds. This ruse would allow him onto plantations, where he would quietly give slaves information on routes of escape. Sometimes he would offer them food, money, compasses, weapons, and the names of people who would shelter them. He once pretended a female slave was his personal servant and led her all the way to Ontario to be reunited with her husband. According to his records, Ross helped free at least thirty-one slaves. Subversion. It means “the undermining of the power and authority of an established system or institution.” This is how we get ready for his return, to go subversively among the plantations of sin and take the time to walk with that one person to freedom. To live our lives in the upside down of the already/not yet—helping the blind see, the deaf hear, and the lame walk—as we wait in hope for Christ our Judge to return and proclaim a final emancipation from the world’s slavery to sin and death.
CHRIST WAS BORN. CHRIST HAS DIED. CHRIST IS RISEN. CHRIST WILL COME AGAIN!

MATTHEW 25:1–13 | “Then the Kingdom of Heaven will be like ten bridesmaids who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. The five who were foolish didn’t take enough olive oil for their lamps, but the other five were wise enough to take along extra oil. When the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and fell asleep. “At midnight they were roused by the shout, ‘Look, the bridegroom is coming! Come out and meet him!’ “All the bridesmaids got up and prepared their lamps. Then the five foolish ones asked the others, ‘Please give us some of your oil because our lamps are going out.’ “But the others replied, ‘We don’t have enough for all of us. Go to a shop and buy some for yourselves.’ “But while they were gone to buy oil, the bridegroom came. Then those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was locked. Later, when the other five bridesmaids returned, they stood outside, calling, ‘Lord! Lord! Open the door for us!’ “But he called back, ‘Believe me, I don’t know you!’ “So you, too, must keep watch! For you do not know the day or hour of my return.”
 
Consider This
I’ve officiated dozens of weddings, and almost all of them share a common practice: the wedding rehearsal. Everyone gathers the night before the ceremony to do a run-through. Everyone practices when they will walk in, where they will stand, how the ceremony will flow, and how they’ll process out. The rehearsal makes sure that when the real wedding arrives, everyone is prepared. Weddings play a big part in the salvation story. This whole thing started with a wedding in a garden that didn’t end well. Jesus performed his first miracle at a wedding, turning water into wine as a sign of what was to happen on the cross. And then there is this very Advent line Jesus drops to his disciples: My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. (John 14:2–3 NIV) This is wedding language. In the ancient Middle East, after a couple was engaged, the custom was for the groom to return to his father’s home, which was known as the “four-bedroom house.” There, his father and he would build another four-bedroom house attached to the father’s.
There would be add-ons and add-ons until two to three generations of families were living around the father’s house. When it was time for the wedding, the groom and his entourage would proceed to the bride’s home, and together they would return to the father’s house, get married, celebrate with a big wedding feast in the father’s dining room, then party for days. This is where today’s text comes in. The bridesmaids don’t know when the groom is coming back for the procession to the father’s house. And we see with the oil lamps that all of them were waiting in anticipation for his return to happen, but only half were prepared for when it might happen. The bridesmaids who had extra oil in their lamps had prepared and were ready, even though they fell asleep. The ones who woke up with nothing were waiting and anticipating the wedding would happen at any moment, but got caught unprepared. Then they foolishly depended on the resources of the others who were ready. It’s as if their pre-wedding posture was, “I don’t need enough oil because I’m with people who already have enough. I’m good if I hang out with them.” And know this: Jesus’ story is an in-house critique. He’s not talking about the lost here; he’s warning those who have answered the question, “If you died tonight, do you know where you’d spend eternity?” Many of us are like the foolish bridesmaids: instead of owning our role in getting prepared, we outsource our readiness, as if simply being associated with the right people at the right time will get us in. As one good friend said, we want Jesus to come back and rescue us, and we’ve got our confirmation class certificate, tithe statement, and recipes from the church potluck ready to show and say, “I’m ready!”
There’s an urgent difference between anticipating and preparing; between waiting and being ready for Jesus to return. Like any good wedding ceremony, there’s a rehearsal. We get prepared by rehearsing now what it will be like when we’re in his father’s house. That rehearsal starts with the meal when we gather in worship and celebrate the Lord’s Supper . . . the one Jesus said he wouldn’t eat with us until he returned and we eat it together in his father’s kingdom. This meal is the heart of our Advent mission, and at the heart of the meal is a prayer. And at the heart of the prayer, we pray that the bread and wine would “become for us the body and blood of Jesus Christ, that we might be for the world the body of Christ redeemed by his blood.” This meal prepares us for our Advent mission, as we wait to hear the angels say: “The time has come for the wedding feast of the Lamb, and his bride has prepared herself. She has been given the finest of pure white linen to wear.” For the fine linen represents the good deeds of God’s holy people. And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding feast of the Lamb.” (Rev. 19:7–9)
CHRIST WAS BORN. CHRIST HAS DIED. CHRIST IS RISEN. CHRIST WILL COME AGAIN!

MATTHEW 24:36–44 | “However, no one knows the day or hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself. Only the Father knows. 

“When the Son of Man returns, it will be like it was in Noah’s day. In those days before the flood, the people were enjoying banquets and parties and weddings right up to the time Noah entered his boat. People didn’t realize what was going to happen until the flood came and swept them all away. That is the way it will be when the Son of Man comes.

“Two men will be working together in the field; one will be taken, the other left. Two women will be grinding flour at the mill; one will be taken, the other left. “So you, too, must keep watch! For you don’t know what day your Lord is coming. Understand this: If a homeowner knew exactly when a burglar was coming, he would keep watch and not permit his house to be broken into. You also must be ready all the time, for the Son of Man will come when least expected.”

Consider This
For twenty-six years my father traveled from Dallas, Texas, to Cairo, Egypt, for work. He was usually gone between three and six months, but sometimes it was longer. Dad runs a tight ship, but the second the wheels on his plane went up, my mom, little brother, and I would immediately put things to our liking. No eating in the living room? Not anymore. The dog isn’t allowed in the house? Guess who’s cuddled up on the sofa taking a nap. Finish my homework first? My favorite show is on, so I’ll watch it while eating pancakes for dinner in the living room while feeding bacon to the dog. We slacked off on everything . . . until the phone call. The one saying he was in the air and would be home in a few hours. We never knew when he would return. We always thought we’d know well in advance and have time to get things in order. There would be rumors, and plans would be made, but there was always something to hold him up.
So it became common practice for his office to wait until he was on a plane, somewhere over the Atlantic, before they would let us know. So we panicked. Now it was all hands on deck! Vacuum the dog dander off the cushions! Throw something that wasn’t pancakes, pizza, or takeout in the oven for dinner! Is the dog still in the house? We made big “Welcome Home, Dad!” banners and hung them from the fireplace mantle. There would be hugs and gifts, unpacking of bags, a big family dinner, and then a night’s sleep to overcome the jet lag. Then my father would wake up and get to work. He would pore over every statement, bill, and report card piled up in his absence . . . then lay out the evidence of money that shouldn’t have been spent, late payments on bills, slipping grades, dog hairs on the carpet, and no real food in the pantry. Then came his judgment: “What have you been doing while I was gone? I expect you to be the same person while I’m away that you are when I’m here.” Previously, we saw that when Jesus returns, his judgment for the world will primarily be about fixing what is broken and restoring what was lost. But what about his judgment for us who are believers? Do we have a role to play now, before his arrival, where he’ll hold us to account? We think we’ve got enough time, but we get distracted by our own wants (and sometimes by trying to figure out when he’ll return) instead of who we’ll be and what we’ll be doing when he does return. Jesus gives us believers a pretty clear expectation of what he’ll judge us for while he’s away.
First, the arrival: “But when the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit upon his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered in his presence, and he will separate the people as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep at his right hand and the goats at his left.” (Matt. 25:31–33) Then, the expectation: “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world. For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.’” (Matt. 25:34–36) And, finally, the criteria: “when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!” (Matt. 25:40) So how do we get ready so we don’t have to scramble when we get the call he’s coming back?
CHRIST WAS BORN. CHRIST HAS DIED. CHRIST IS RISEN. CHRIST WILL COME AGAIN!

PSALM 96:11–13 | Let the heavens be glad, and the earth rejoice! Let the sea and everything in it shout his praise! Let the fields and their crops burst out with joy! Let the trees of the forest sing for joy before the Lord, for he is coming! He is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world with justice, and the nations with his truth. 

Consider This
Last chapter we looked at how the return of Jesus is good news that should bring joy, not fear. But another reason we may not be ready for his return (or want it to happen) is because of one little word that comes back with Christ: judgment. I’ve been called for jury duty once. It was a civil case involving a hospital. Someone had done something wrong, and someone had to pay . . . a lot. I was the last potential juror sent home. When the judge called my number and said I could go, I was a little bummed. I wanted to see it play out. I had visions in my head from every courtroom drama I’d ever watched. But honestly, I wanted to see someone get their comeuppance. Isn’t anticipating the verdict the best part of a courtroom scene? Think of all the major court cases that have played out in real life in our country . . . millions waiting to hear if their version of justice will be handed down, and then many responding with either relief or rage. We tend to think of a judge as someone who frees those who are innocent, but more often hands down punishment to those who have done wrong. And if we’re honest, many times when we say “justice” what we really mean is “revenge.”
But my friend Steve Seamands explains in his book Give Them Christ how in the days of the Bible, judgment was “not primarily about rewards and punishments or balancing scales, but about fixing what’s been broken and making wrong things right.”10 He points to N. T. Wright, who explains judgment as a celebration of today’s text: “In a world of systematic injustice, bullying, violence, arrogance, and oppression, the thought that there might come a day when the wicked are firmly put in their place and the poor and weak are given their due is the best news there can be.” There’s that idea again: Jesus coming back as good news. So what verdict are we anticipating from Christ when he returns? What will his judgment be? Let the psalmist give us a clue: But joyful are those who have the God of Israel as their helper, whose hope is in the Lord their God. He made heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them. He keeps every promise forever. He gives justice to the oppressed and food to the hungry. The Lord frees the prisoners. The Lord opens the eyes of the blind.
 The Lord lifts up those who are weighed down. The Lord loves the godly. The Lord protects the foreigners among us. He cares for the orphans and widows, but he frustrates the plans of the wicked. (Ps. 146:5–9) What do we want? Justice. When do we want it? Now. Come quickly, Lord Jesus!
CHRIST WAS BORN. CHRIST HAS DIED. CHRIST IS RISEN. CHRIST WILL COME AGAIN!

REVELATION 21:1–5 | Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, “Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.” And the one sitting on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new!”

Consider This
The previous chapter ended with a call to spread joy, not fear, about the end of the world. Joy? Yes . . . joy. Consider the song we sing as a Christmas carol, but is really an Advent anthem, “Joy to the World”: Joy to the world, the Lord is come! Let earth receive her King; Let every heart prepare him room, And heaven and nature sing, And heaven and nature sing, And heaven, and heaven, and nature sing.
In this chapter, we see God’s future mission completion to redeem our mission failure: a new heaven and a new earth, with no more of the sorrow and pain of this world. That’s a reason to celebrate, right? But what if there’s more going on than God calling for a cosmic do-over and replacing this world with a new one? The late great Robert Mulholland wrote that the Greek word translated “new” here is kinos, which implies renewed, not brand new . . . a change in quality or essence, rather than something that never existed before.
 In other words, maybe Jesus is not returning to wipe this world out in fire and violence, but instead to restore shalom. We translate that word “peace,” but this kind of peace is more than just the absence of conflict. It is understood as wholeness and well-being, the gift from God that was lost in Eden and recovered by the Prince of Peace. Joy to the world, the Savior reigns! Let men their songs employ; While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains Repeat the sounding joy, Repeat the sounding joy, Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy. N. T. Wright says, “if God really does intend to redeem rather than reject his created world . . . we are faced with the question: what might it look like to celebrate that redemption, that healing and transformation, in the present, and thereby appropriately anticipate God’s final intention?”
If the gospel of Jesus Christ isn’t good news for the future, then it isn’t good news for the present. Advent is about hearing the story from the future and allowing it to speak joy into the darkest places now. And it can’t just be good news for me in my comfy, middle-class American life. The future has to be good news wherever there is darkness in the world. Advent is saying this world is not how it was supposed to be, and it’s not how it’s going to be. Is the future good news for the city of Aleppo? For the daughter sitting next to her dying mother in hospice? For refugees forced from their homes and land? For the teenage girl trapped as a sex slave? For the lands decimated by consumption? For the father with depression trying every medication? For race relations? For the gunshot victim? For the pastor with a porn addiction? No more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground; He comes to make his blessings flow Far as the curse is found, Far as the curse is found, Far as, far as, the curse is found.
I once heard U2’s Bono say that joy is a defiant act against our mortality.8 Let all the people say amen because this future is good news against the curse that brought death to us all. We can have joy in the middle of tragedy and darkness today because of what Advent is saying about tomorrow. He rules the world with truth and grace And makes the nations prove The glories of his righteousness, And wonders of his love, And wonders of his love, And wonders, wonders, of his love.
CHRIST WAS BORN. CHRIST HAS DIED. CHRIST IS RISEN. CHRIST WILL COME AGAIN!

MATTHEW 24:6–8, 29–30 | And you will hear of wars and threats of wars, but don’t panic. Yes, these things must take place, but the end won’t follow immediately. Nation will go to war against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in many parts of the world. But all this is only the first of the birth pains, with more to come. . . . “Immediately after the anguish of those days, the sun will be darkened, the moon will give no light, the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. And then at last, the sign that the Son of Man is coming will appear in the heavens, and there will be deep mourning among all the peoples of the earth. And they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.” 

Consider This
We read Scripture like this and we panic. The return of Jesus is the end of the world as we know it, and it sounds terrifying. Many of us go to extremes: we either avoid it or try to control it. We steer clear of preaching and teaching about it altogether or spend an unhealthy amount of time trying to figure out a road map of the end times. That’s what fear does, and as Jedi Master Yoda says, “Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to suffering.”but Jesus says, “Don’t panic. I’m coming in great glory.” So if his return is something to celebrate at Advent, why are we so afraid of it? Maybe before we look at what the return of Jesus is, we should look at what it isn’t. Here’s a little story for you. In my church youth group days, we spent a lot of time talking about how the world would end and getting married. For most us, the main takeaway was hoping we got married before Jesus came back.
But a lot of folks took it very seriously, including my mom’s Sunday school teacher. Almost every lesson involved reading the headlines and getting ready for the end, which could come at any moment. She taught the class from cassette tapes and books by popular end-times preachers, who combined current events and Scripture in an attempt to predict a target date for the return of Christ. They said there would be global cataclysms to signal the end of the world, and the big question was, “Are you ready?” Then one day, the teacher and her family disappeared. They sold their house, quit their jobs, and moved to rural Texas. They bought some remote property, stocked up on food, water, and other supplies . . . and waited. And waited. Five years later we saw them at the grocery store after they moved back.
Don’t panic. I’m coming in great glory. But panic has helped create an end-times industrial complex: preachers, teachers, conferences, books, movies— all aimed at predicting when Christ will return and what will happen to the world—have steadily flooded the Christian consumer market. We’re not the first to have this problem. Paul also dealt with it and gives a warning: “Don’t be so easily shaken or alarmed by those who say that the day of the Lord has already begun. Don’t believe them, even if they claim to have had a spiritual vision, a revelation, or a letter supposedly from us. Don’t be fooled by what they say.” (2 Thess. 2:2–3)
But people are still fooled, and at the heart of this complex is a theology that says an already dark world will be plunged into utter despair, Christians will be taken away, and Jesus will return to settle the score and wipe the whole place out. This sounds more like revenge than restoration, and is that a reason to celebrate Advent? No. The return of Jesus is part of the gospel, which is good news. Anything that operates out of fear and violence is not good news. Don’t panic. I’m coming in great glory. Those wars, famines, and earthquakes—and the lives they destroy—aren’t God’s warm-up act for the end. They are the consequences of the sins Jesus is coming back to undo. Whatever you believe about how the world will end in the future forms your posture to the world today. So things will be bad . . . and may get worse. But don’t panic. He’s going to come back in great glory. So let’s stop spreading fear about it, and instead spread some joy to the world. CHRIST WAS BORN. CHRIST HAS DIED. CHRIST IS RISEN. CHRIST WILL COME AGAIN!

JOHN 1:1–5 | In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He existed in the beginning with God. God created everything through him, and nothing was created except through him. The Word gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought light to everyone. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.

Consider This
Today I’d like to settle the “Jesus is the reason for the season” kerfuffle.
Previously, I shared the story of the Apollo 8 astronauts reading the creation story from Genesis 1 as they orbited the moon. They said they chose this text because it would be safe for all religions. To be sure, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” is a statement most Jews, Christians, or Muslims would agree with. However, John’s telling of the creation story creates a conflict. He makes it all about Jesus: “God created everything through [Jesus], and nothing was created except through him” (1:3). And the writer of Hebrews agrees when he writes, “. . . through the Son [God] made the universe and everything in it” (1:2 NLT 1996).
The author Sally Lloyd-Jones says it poetically in her children’s book, The Jesus Storybook Bible, with the story of Jesus calming the storm over the Sea of Galilee: “The wind and the waves recognized Jesus’ voice. (They had heard it before, of course—it was the same voice that made them, in the very beginning.)”3 In other words, before time . . . before creation . . . before sin . . . there was Jesus.
The apostle Paul echoes John: Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation, for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth.  He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see— such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through him and for him. He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together. (Col. 1:15–17) Jesus is the one who created all of this. Jesus is the one who came down to be like one of us and redeem all this. And Jesus is the one who will come back and fully restore all of this. In the beginning, Jesus. In the end, Jesus. It’s why Advent is a season, not just a day. Because seasons form us. They tell which stories have the power to control the trajectory of our desires, time, money, resources, and affections.
We orient ourselves to seasons and, in turn, they orient us. Think about it: football season; hunting season; the school calendar; the fiscal year; the sacred days like the Fourth of July and Super Bowl Sunday; these and others dominate the orbit of our lives. It’s why the seasons of the church calendar orbit around the life of Christ: Advent: the return of Jesus to the world in final victory, because of . . . Christmas: the birth of Jesus into the world, which leads to ... Epiphany: the manifestation of Jesus to the world, which leads to . . . Lent: Jesus’ journey to the cross for the world, which leads to . . . Easter: the resurrection of Jesus in the world, which leads to . . . Ascension: the enthronement of Jesus over the world, which leads to . . . Pentecost: Jesus sending his Spirit into the world, which leads to . . . Kingdomtide: proclaiming the good news of Jesus to the world, which leads to . . . Advent: the return of Jesus to the world in final victory. Remember, Advent is an opportunity to once again let the church’s seasons, not the world’s, set the orbit of our lives . . . for the sake of the world God loves. So it’s settled. Jesus really is the reason for the season. All of them.
CHRIST WAS BORN. CHRIST HAS DIED. CHRIST IS RISEN. CHRIST WILL COME AGAIN!

GENESIS 1:1–10 | In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. Then he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day” and the darkness “night.” And evening passed and morning came, marking the first day. Then God said, “Let there be a space between the waters, to separate the waters of the heavens from the waters of the earth.” And that is what happened. God made this space to separate the waters of the earth from the waters of the heavens. God called the space “sky.” And evening passed and morning came, marking the second day. Then God said, “Let the waters beneath the sky flow together into one place, so dry ground may appear.” And that is what happened. God called the dry ground “land” and the waters “seas.” And God saw that it was good. 

Consider This
On Christmas Eve 1968, the crew of Apollo 8 became the first humans to orbit the moon. That evening, during the most-watched television event at the time, they sent back the first live images of Earth. At the end of the broadcast the three astronauts took turns reading today’s text from Genesis, and ended with, “And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas—and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.” It was an appropriate text for the first glimpse of our planet from the heavens, and the image was aptly titled, “Earth-Rise.” But we know what happened next in the Genesis story: mission failure. God created humanity in his image, but we turned away in fear and rebellion, and all of creation still suffers. When we look at the world today, we see this isn’t the way it was supposed to be: Floods. Cancer. Mass shootings. Sexual assault. Terrorism. War. Hunger. Anxiety. Depression. And on and on. But remember, in the beginning it was the good earth, and that’s what Advent is about: the final stage of the new mission God began after humanity fell. We get that Jesus was born, crucified, and is risen . . . but we often lose sight that he’s also enthroned in heaven, interceding for the world, and will one day return to make all things new again.
Advent helps us see his mission and get in on it. One of the Apollo 8 astronauts, Bill Anders, said they had prepared to explore the moon, but ended up discovering Earth. That’s what’s needed here: a new way to see the earth. Theologically speaking, we need the Google Earth view, if you will. In our day-to-day lives, we spend most of our time on Google Street View, seeing only what’s right in front of us. Our day-to-day view tends to be more oriented by the darkness of the world around us than by God’s love for it. Part of the reason we may not be ready for the return of Jesus is because we’ve not yet fully embraced the view of “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son” (John 3:16, emphasis mine), where Jesus is ahead of us, present now through the Holy Spirit, working out the restoration of the whole world. As the psalmist says:
 
For your unfailing love is as high as the heavens. Your faithfulness reaches to the clouds. Be exalted, O God, above the highest heavens. May your glory shine over all the earth. (Ps. 57:10–11)

So then, Advent is a reorientation that refuses to only look at the street view but is first pulling back to see all that God is doing to redeem all people’s stories into his great.  It gives us the opportunity to pause and take inventory—to start with the end in mind and see if our lives look like our beliefs and prayers—so that Jesus’ kingdom can come on earth as it is in heaven.
HRIST WAS BORN. CHRIST HAS DIED. CHRIST IS RISEN. CHRIST WILL COME AGAIN!

INTRODUCTION
NASA’s Apollo 13 had one mission: land on the moon. On April 13, 1971, the spacecraft carrying three astronauts was half way to the moon when an oxygen tank exploded. Now tumbling through space while leaking breathable air, losing power, and drifting off course, Commander Jim Lovell radioed to mission control: “Houston, we’ve had a problem,” and their mission immediately changed. It was now a rescue mission, and the goal was to get back to Earth alive. After they splashed down in the Pacific Ocean four days later, their mission was dubbed “the successful failure” because they lost their original goal of landing on the moon but made it back to Earth alive. Our story begins with a simple mission: “The Lord God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it” (Gen. 2:15). But soon there was the big lie, rebellion, and so Eden, we’ve had a problem. Now God had a new mission: save us from our sin and its catastrophic effects. It is a succesful failure because we lost our original creation goal, but God has succeeded in saving us through Jesus Christ. x IRDUCI The meaning of the word mission is “a sending; a charge to go and perform a specific duty.” This leads us to the mission statement of Scripture, John 3:16–17: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” This time of year we go straight to Christmas, the first part of the mission. But what about Advent, which is the last part of the mission? The first stage is Jesus’ arrival in the manger. The final stage is his arrival in the clouds. Maybe we lose sight of the real meaning of Advent because, for many of us, Advent is the launching pad to Christmas morning: a twenty-four-day countdown to stockings and presents. We don’t think about Advent as first being about the second coming. After all, it’s been two millennia since Christ was born, crucified, rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, and sent the Holy Spirit. And for two thousand years, we’ve been living somewhere between forgetting about or fretting over his return. In his book Give Them Christ, Stephen Seamands writes, “the second coming should therefore not cause us to abandon this world or look for an escape from its suffering and evil. Instead, it should move us to become passionately and actively engaged in it.”
Preparing for that kind of Advent before we celebrate Christmas is how we get in on God’s rescue mission. Consider these devotionals a launch manual for our mission together. To get started, maybe we need to add a line to the mystery of our faith, which is really our mission hope: Christ was born. Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again! Let the countdown begin . . .

1 1. Stephen Seamands, Give Them Christ: Preaching His Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection, Ascension and Return (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2012), 176.

HAPPY NEW YEAR
ROMANS 13:11–14 | This is all the more urgent, for you know how late it is; time is running out. Wake up, for our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is almost gone; the day of salvation will soon be here. So remove your dark deeds like dirty clothes, and put on the shining armor of right living.

Because we belong to the day, we must live decent lives for all to see. Don’t participate in the darkness of wild parties and drunkenness, or in sexual promiscuity and immoral living, or in quarreling and jealousy. Instead, clothe yourself with the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. And don’t let yourself think about ways to indulge your evil desires.

Consider This
Do you remember New Year’s 2000? I sort of do. I’m not one for New Year’s Eve parties. In fact, I would rather go to bed before midnight and wake up in a new year. But this was the arrival of a new millennium! The entire earth was celebrating this historic moment in space and time across the globe, and I was all alone. All of my plans had fallen through, so I sat by myself at home watching the news show fireworks and celebrations as the clock struck midnight across each time zone, from the Great Pyramids at Giza to the Statue of Liberty.
When the new millennium arrived for me in Dallas, I drank champagne alone. Instead of celebration, it was isolation. More than a new year, it was a new era, and I was starting out disoriented. Like many of us, I look to New Year’s as a time to start over, because “this year is going to be better.” But when we try to do it all in one day—in the midst of a frantic holiday season—we wake up still lost and disoriented, having given up on our resolutions by the end of the week. Instead of a single day, we need a season. We need Advent. We need Advent because it takes time for reorientation: to prepare, to repent, and to wake up to all that Christmas morning aspires to be. Advent is not a season to get lost in earthly celebration, but to be found in what God has done, is doing, and will do through Jesus Christ in a disoriented world. Advent is New Year’s for the church: the first season in the Christian calendar. Advent means “the arrival of a notable person, thing, or event.” For Christians, it marks the celebration of the arrival of Jesus Christ, but not in the ways we often think of in the midst of mistletoe and holly. In the Christian calendar, the end is the beginning. Before we celebrate Jesus’ silent-night first arrival in the manger, we prepare for his trumpet-blasting second coming in the clouds. He will come back and bring history to a close, and we don’t need to be afraid. Because as we’ll see this season, his return is a good thing. The earth has completed another trek around the sun, finishing its four seasons and preparing to make another H ADV MII 5 orbit. Where will we find ourselves this year? Advent is an alternate to New Year’s as an opportunity to let the church’s seasons, not the world’s, set the orbit for our lives.
CHRIST WAS BORN. CHRIST HAS DIED. CHRIST IS RISEN. CHRIST WILL COME AGAIN!