December 14

This is the third Sunday of Advent, a season in which we look forward to the coming of Christ. The word advent is Latin for “coming”, and there are three different “comings” of Christ I want us to think about this morning: the first coming of Christ into the world as a Baby, 2,000 years ago; the second coming of Christ at the end of human history; and the coming of Christ into our lives in the present moment. Let’s look at four questions about each of these “advents”.

The Jews were looking for a king. All through the prophets, the Messiah would be the son of David, who would sit on David’s throne. The very first prophet to speak of the Messiah was Nathan, who reported God’s words to David: 1 Chron. 17:11-14, “When your days are over and you go to be with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, one of your own sons, and I will establish his kingdom. [12] He is the one who will build a house for me, and I will establish his throne forever. [13] I will be his father, and he will be my son. I will never take my love away from him, as I took it away from your predecessor. [14] I will set him over my house and my kingdom forever; his throne will be established forever.” Initially, of course, that referred to David’s son, Solomon. But the end of the prophecy, which speaks of the throne being established forever, hints that someone else is in mind as well. Later, as the Jews were oppressed by foreign rulers, and as they were driven out of their homeland and sent away to exile in Babylon, and as they chafed under the domination of the Romans, the assumption grew that this future ruler would be a great king, a military leader, who would defeat the oppressors in battle and restore Israel to their national prominence.

With that background, you can imagine how hard it was for the leaders to accept the idea that Jesus—the humble carpenter from Nazareth, the itinerant rabbi, the non-violent one—it was almost impossible for them to believe that He could be the long awaited Messiah.

But there were also hints of this different nature of the Christ, especially in Isaiah.

The indications we have from history are that very few people of Jesus’ day were thinking in these terms as they looked for and prayed for Messiah to come. Certainly, there is very little in the prophecies about the Messiah that would even give a hint that He would come two different times, separated by thousands of years, in these two very different manners. But that was the case, as we now know.

Who is coming in the second Advent? The first time Jesus came to earth, He came very quietly—only a few shepherds and some obscure astrologers knew of it. He came very humbly—born in a stable, laid in a food trough, lived as a peasant, became a traveling rabbi who owned nothing but the clothes on His back. He died in a humiliating, disgraceful, degrading manner—the Suffering Servant.

But Jesus Himself assures us that His second coming will be altogether different: Matthew 24:30, “At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory.” Everyone on earth will see Him coming (Matt 24:27). He insisted that He would sit on a throne and judge the entire human race (Matthew 25:31-33). Jesus told John (in the Revelation) that He would fight a cosmic battle with the forces of evil and win, and that He would reign on the earth as the sole and supreme authority. Wow! That’s a little different, isn’t it? The one who is coming in the second Advent is the same one who came 2,000 years ago, but He is coming in an altogether different manner!

It’s a four week period of anticipating Christmas day, when we celebrate Jesus’ birth. And we are invited to look forward to that glorious time in the future when Jesus will come as king and ruler and make all things right. But Advent is more than that; it is also a time of opening ourselves up, preparing for Him to come into our lives in this present moment. So the question is, who do you need Jesus to be to you today?

Do you need comfort in the trials of life? The Holy Spirit of Christ is the Comforter.

Do you need strength to get through a difficult time? The Lord is the strength of our heart and our portion forever

The holidays can be a stressful time, and the current economic climate makes it all that much harder for many. As you wait for Jesus to “come” on Christmas day this year, wait patiently for Him to come into your life with everything you need. Jesus is the great I AM. He is everything you need.

The Jews had been waiting for Messiah for at least a thousand years, ever since the time of King David. They were the descendants, the remnant if you will, of the ancient Israelites who lived under David and first heard the promises from the prophet Nathan. But since that time, they had been through a lot. The nation had split under David’s son, Solomon, into a northern kingdom called Israel, and a southern kingdom centered in Jerusalem, called Judah. Four hundred years of mostly bad kings in both nations followed, and the people of God sank into all manner of sin. Finally, God was fed up with their religious ritualism, the lack of social justice, and their idolatry, and He destroyed both nations: Israel in 722 B.C. at the hands of the Assyrians, and Judah in 586 B.C. by the Babylonians. But the Babylonians didn’t quite succeed in completely destroying the Jews, the citizens of Judah (that’s where the name “Jew” comes from.) They carried many of them off into captivity in Babylon, where they lived as exiles for seventy years. Then God brought the remnant back to Jerusalem, where they rebuilt the temple and the city, and lived for another 400 years without any word from God. Eventually, the Romans occupied their country and brought them into the greater Roman Empire.

Amazingly, after all that, there were still faithful Jews who remembered the ancient promises, and still looked forward to the man God would send as their deliverer. (Such as Simeon, Luke 2:25.)

Who is waiting for Jesus’ second coming? We are. The people of God, the followers of Christ in this age, are waiting for Him to return. We hear the promises of the blessed hope that we will see Jesus face to face. The Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, and the archangel’s call, and the sound of the trumpet of God (1 Th 4:16). In the communion service we hear the words, “whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.” It is a look back, and a look forward at the same time. So Christmas, too, is a look back at His first coming, 2,000 years ago, and a longing look forward to the time when we will see Him face to face. Whenever you celebrate Christmas, you proclaim His birth until He comes.

But then there is this present moment, as we wait for Him to come to us in the midst of our present circumstances. Who waits for Him today? We do! We who have come into this place to worship Him, and to meet Him here. We expect Him to meet us, to come to us, as He has promised.

· Those who are poor in spirit, who are beaten down by life, who are needy, who have run out of gas, who have come to the profound realization that they can’t do life on their own—they wait for the one who is All in All to come to them and fill them up.

· Those who mourn, who are grieving over the loss of a loved one or friend—It’s especially difficult when that dear one died at a holiday season, because then the culture is telling you to celebrate, and your heart is breaking. But such people seek for and wait for the coming of the Comforter to them, to heal their broken hearts.

· Those who are meek, humble, not thinking all that much of themselves, not daring to hope that they would ever really succeed in much of anything. The emotionally downtrodden wait for the One who said, Luke 14:11, “everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."

· Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness wait for Jesus at this season, because they are dismayed at all the injustice in our world. They see dictators crushing their people for the sake of their own egos; they see crimes that are never solved, emotional and physical abuse between family members, rampant racism, and abject, grinding poverty; they see the sin in their own lives, and are crushed by it. And they long for the King of Righteousness to come and make things right.

All these and more today wait for the Advent of the Christ into our world. Not just at the end of history, not in power and glory yet, but in the still small ways that give hope to a dying world that we are not abandoned.

The Jews were faithfully waiting for Messiah, and we have to give them high marks for their patient endurance. It had been 400 years since the last prophet! They had no idea when He would arrive, but God did. Galatians 4:4, “when the time had fully come, God sent his Son.” God had been carefully planning that date for a long time. When the time had fully come, He caused Caesar Augustus, the pagan Emperor, living in Rome, 1400 miles away[2], to decree a census that would get Jesus to Bethlehem just in time to be born, so as to fulfill the ancient prophecy of Micah, 700 years before. Jesus arrived at a time in history when the Pax Romana, and the Roman roads, and the universality of the Greek language all facilitated the spread of the good news that God had visited our planet with grace and truth for all.

We have no idea what date Jesus was actually born. The date of Christmas on December 25 was probably chosen sometime in the 4^th century to oppose the Roman feast of Saturnalia, which celebrated the return of the Sun God (coinciding with the winter solstice on Dec 22). As the days started to get longer, the Romans celebrated the fact that the sun was not going to die. The Christians thought that since Jesus was the Son of God, and the Son of Righteousness, they could celebrate His birth at that time and sort of co-opt the pagan celebration.[3] And it worked.

The date of Jesus’ second coming has been the subject of much debate and many failed predictions over the centuries. It’s almost comical how certain some writers and speakers have been in stating when Christ would return. Well, it would be humorous if so many people were not taken in by it, and if it did not cause so much anxiety in some.

You may have noticed that I do not ever preach on eschatology (the end times); the reason is because I do not understand the prophecies in Daniel and Ezekiel and Revelation very well. I am frankly confused by all that, so I think it is better if I remain silent and be thought a fool than to open my mouth and remove all doubt!

It is my observation that people who spend a lot of time thinking and talking about the second coming are usually not very active in living their faith out in the here and now. I know there are notable exceptions, and maybe you are one of them, but all too many people who are fascinated with the return of Christ are like the folks in Thessalonica who gave up their jobs and were just sitting around, because they were convinced Jesus was coming very soon. These people would often rather discuss things that no one can know for sure than get to work at the task Jesus has assigned them.

No one knows. No one knows the hour or the day of His return. Period. Jesus said not even He knew it when He was here on earth (Mark 13:32). And therefore, speculation is unwarranted and misguided.

on earth before Jesus comes. Jesus said, Matthew 24:14, “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations (ethne), and then the end will come.” When I read books on prophecy, or listen to preachers talking about it, I almost never hear them say anything about this. They tend to focus on world events, particularly those that affect the nation of Israel, and there may be something to that. But to overlook the plain teaching of Jesus, and assert that He could come any minute, is simply misleading. There are several thousand people groups on earth who have not had the gospel preached to them in any meaningful way. These people have no chance to come to faith in Christ. But Revelation assures us that at the end of time, there will be, Rev. 7:9, “a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb.” So regardless of what the latest Middle East crisis is, until we get a lot closer to the goal of having believers from every ethnic group on earth, Jesus is not coming yet.

When is He coming in this present advent? We know exactly when He will “come” this year—on December 25, like every year. The official holiday will be a week from Thursday, but when will He come to you? It is not based on the calendar, but more on your receptivity. He will come to us when we are ready for Him.

Until John the Baptist arrived on the scene, there wasn’t a lot of preparation going on for the coming of the Messiah. The people were just waiting, some with more anticipation than others (e.g. Simeon). But John’s specific ministry was to get people ready for Jesus, by calling them to repent of their sins. He had a compelling message and spoke in the power of the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:15) so that many of the Jews came out to him to confess their sins and be baptized in the Jordan River as a sign of their forgiveness.

How should we prepare for the second Advent? In Matthew 24 and 25, Jesus told a series of three parables about His second coming. Two are about a master who leaves his servants in charge of things while he goes on a trip, and the third is about ten young women at a wedding celebration, only some of whom were ready when the groom arrived. Together, these three stories make the following points:

• Jesus will come back at a time when no one expects Him, like a thief in the night. (This point alone makes me uncomfortable when I hear people confidently predicting when He will return.)

• He will reward those who are faithful in their duties, and punish those who are unfaithful.

In Acts 1, just before Jesus ascended, He met with His disciples for a last time. They asked him, 1:6, “‘Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?’ [7] He said to them: ‘It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. [8] But “–have you ever noticed what that “but” was doing there? You have probably memorized this verse, but what is the “but” for? It is in contrast to the idle speculation about when Jesus will establish His reign on earth. We don’t get to know that. But “…you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’” …[10] They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. [11] ‘Men of Galilee,’ they said, ‘why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.’”

How should we prepare for His second coming? Jesus gives us His Spirit so that we can be His witnesses to the ends of the earth, and now that He’s gone, we ought not be standing around like a city work crew with our hands in our pockets. We’ve got work to do. He’s coming back, and He better find us working when He does. Pray for your neighbors; pray for your relatives who don’t know Christ. Invite people over for Christmas cookies and share with them why this is such a meaningful season for you. Invite a man to the Nuggets game on Jan 3—see Chris Perciante immediately if you want to do this. Plant seeds of truth in people’s minds, and water them with prayer. Look for ways to serve your neighbors and coworkers. Offer to pray for folks when they struggle with life. Send your kids into missions. Pray for missionaries.

Most of us are not very good at waiting. We are trained by our culture, with fast food and microwaves, and TV shows and movies, that pretty much every problem or challenge in life can be resolved in an hour—two at the most. We hate to wait in line, and it kills us when the grocery line we choose has the person ahead of us who needs to call the manager, and they haggle about their check, or whatever, and the people on either side of us are streaming out the door ahead of us. Stop lights are a test of our patience that many of us fail regularly. If the fruit of the Spirit is patience, we need more of it.

The Bible has a lot to say about the value of waiting. Isaiah 40:31 NASB “Yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength; They will mount up with wings like eagles, They will run and not get tired, They will walk and not become weary.”

God is never in a hurry, and He certainly does not seem to be too concerned about our time schedule. The Israelites suffered for 400 years in Egypt before God delivered them. They wandered in the Sinai desert for 40 years. It was 400 years from the time of the last Old Testament prophet until John the Baptist showed up. And it has been 2,000 years since Jesus left with a promise to return “soon” (Rev. 3:11; 22:7, 12, 20). I conclude from this that God is an African! The Africans say, You Westerners have the watches; we have the time. God has all the time in the world, and He calls us to wait for Him—expectantly, faithfully, patiently. So whatever it is you are hoping for God to do, wait. Don’t be anxious. Don’t fret. Relax. The Sovereign God is in control of His story (history), and He is in control of your story. Wait. In the fullness of time, God sent His Son into the world, and when the time is right, He will come to you. Wait.

The second way to prepare for Jesus to come to us in this present moment is to be alert.

Just as Jesus surprised the people of His day by coming in a way they did not expect, we need to be open to the possibility that He may come into our life in a totally unexpected way. He is unbelievably creative. We may think that we need one thing from Him, but He knows that what we really need is something else. We are looking for Him in one direction, and He shows up behind us totally unexpectedly. Don’t box Him in. Don’t limit Him to your imagination. He is way bigger than that. Be aware and awake—spiritually alert, so you don’t miss the way He comes to you.

Near the end of His life, Jesus told many stories all with the same point: be ready; be alert; stay awake. The master who left for a time is coming back when you do not expect Him. Don’t miss Him. Don’t let Him find you sleeping.

Are you awake spiritually? Are you alert to the movements of God in your life and your soul?

Here’s how we do that at Christmas. The key is to make the time to focus on His birth and His presence with you. It’s a crazy season, isn’t it? We cram so much into these few weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas: multiple parties, special end of the year school events, shopping and wrapping gifts, sending Christmas cards, baking, decorating the house, and the tree. And of course, the Church gets into the act with decorating, and staff and elders’ party, and a special children’s Christmas musical (tonight—Three Wise Men and a Baby—it promises to be really fun). So the challenge for us is to keep our focus on the birth of Christ in the midst of all that. Here are two ways to do that:

One is to make an extra effort to be consistent in our times alone with the Lord. Re-read the Christmas story in the Scripture—that’s where you have to start. Then read any of a number of devotional books and articles—there are lots of things available. Make sure you take time each day to thank God for sending His Son. Write in your journal some reflections on what the birth of Christ means to you.

The other way to focus on Christ is to use the things we see and hear all around us as reminders of what this season is all about. There are lots of lights around—when you see them, remind yourself that Jesus is the light of the world, and think about ways He has brought light into your life. We are shopping for and wrapping gifts—use that time to recall that God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, the greatest gift of all, and that we are giving to others because God has given so much to us. As you pay for your purchases, remind yourself that Jesus came to pay the penalty for your sins. As you gather with family and friends, thank Jesus that He came to reconcile us to one another, as well as to God, and thank Him for the friends and brothers and sisters in Christ He has given you.

But the key thing is to make sure we are alert to the existential meaning of this season—Jesus is coming to us personally, and we need to be alert to that, no matter how He may show up.

[1] The four questions are in Walter Wangerin, Preparing for Jesus (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1999), p.21ff. The development of the theme is mine.

[2] 1434 miles: http://www.blurtit.com/q961344.html

[3] There is written evidence that by 354, the Bishop of Rome was observing December 25th as the date of Christ's birth. Four major Roman festivals were held in December, including Saturnalia which celebrated the returning Sun-god. Some thing [sic] these were adapted to the Christian celebration of the coming of the Son of God. http://chi.gospelcom.net/DAILYF/2003/11/daily-11-17-2003.shtml

The earliest mention of the observance on Dec. 25th is in the Philocalian Calendar, representing Roman practice of the year 336. This date was probably chosen to oppose the feast of the Natalis Solis Invicti (nativity of the unconquerable sun) by the celebration of the birth of the 'Sun of Righteousness' and its observance in the West, seems to have spread from Rome" (1983 edition, Oxford University Press, New York, 1983, p. 280, "Christmas"). http://www.ucgstp.org/lit/gn/gn008/gn008f03.htm