As Spanky wrote the other week, churches have all sorts of bits of tradition and culture that no one else has. So, what’s Advent? What are we celebrating?
Advent is a season that spans four Sundays and leads to Christmas – so, this year, it started last Sunday. Some of us pay a lot of attention to Church seasons like this, while others don’t, and that’s okay. But Advent can help us understand the deep story of Christmas and the deep things God is doing in us and through us.
Recently I have been doing some work trying to grow my understanding of the Book of Isaiah. It is a major book of prophecy from the time when God’s people had to go into exile in order to unlearn bad stuff they had been doing because they rejected God.
It is a book that we often read during Advent. For example, it’s Isaiah who says “Look! A virgin will conceive and have a son… He will be called ‘God with us’.”1
Isaiah is not always easy to understand – partly because it’s long and God is speaking to people in different situations, partly because it was written a long, long time ago, in a land far, far away.
BUT Isaiah speaks to and is written down for people just like us:
So… what?
The Lord says “Comfort, comfort my people – speak comfort to them – tell them their battles are over and they are forgiven.” The Lord says, “Make a pathway – I’m coming to save you!” A bit further on God says, “I will look after you like the kindest shepherd, and I will gather you in my arms.”2
Just like us, God’s people have been betraying God and God’s heart big time. They worship junk that isn’t God – chasing wealth and houses and being major consumers, and all at the cost of others. Their society is violent, greedy, and unfair.
God’s Spirit brings kindness and generosity and peace and patience and self-control. But God’s people are worshipping idols because they think the idols will give them all the stuff they want. But the idols teach them brokenness, not life. Sound familiar?
God has called, and called, and called. In the end they have to lose everything before they will listen. They end up defeated, at the very bottom, and a million miles from home. (Lord, I want to be a person who listens to you sooner, not later!)
Those “Comfort, comfort, comfort my people” words come at a turning point. At rock bottom, they can receive God’s love again, and God is ready to do the most amazing things to save them. Fifteen chapters follow, as one long message of God’s kindness, grace, and especially salvation – God’s rescue. For people just like us.
All this turns out to point to? Jesus! The Book of Isaiah is sometimes called “the fifth Gospel” – especially these middle chapters – and it’s because it is full of Jesus before he ever arrives.
“Okay, okay, okay,” I hear you say. “So what?”
What God says here in Isaiah is what God does at Christmas, and in the whole of Jesus’ story: his life – through his death, his resurrection and even his ascension. It is what God is still doing today through his Son and by the Spirit.
It reminds me of being a parent, especially of smaller children. There are those moments of devastation for us when we are small. Times when we simply are overwhelmed and we cannot cope. Those epic moments of meltdown when we are not necessarily being naughty, not being stupid or wrong – we simply have no answer to our overwhelm and there is no way up.
Sometimes it is still like that for me. My meltdowns are much more self-controlled, but the overwhelm can be very real. Too many things I can’t fix at work, too many people who need something from me, too many fears for my children and my parents and my household and Rebecca and the dog.
God comes down.
When one of my small children was overwhelmed, the best I could do was simply get down and hold them, gather them up in my arms, hold them until they stopped fighting me, hold them until they felt safe, and show them I would look after them.
God does that back in the time of Isaiah, but the promise then was that the real rescue would come soon when God would fully come down. The promise of a child who would learn and grow and become an adult, who would be God’s love in human flesh and who would fully save his people.
I am his child. He comforts me, he lifts me up, he holds me to his chest. He doesn’t leave me the same! When he rescues me – as he constantly does – he moves me onward. I am his child and he matures me. He teaches me through his Word and he fills me with his Spirit. He understands me and he loves me, he corrects me, even disciplines me – he judges me with his love and calls me to “better”. He calls me his friend as he teaches me his work.
This is far more than just a cuddle – and it is so, so good.
That's what Advent is about: God comes down.
1 Isaiah 7
2 Isaiah 40
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series below.
More articles in the
series are to come.
We have invited these writers to share their experiences, ideas and opinions in the hope that these will provoke thought, challenge you to go deeper and inspire you to put your faith into action. These articles should not be taken as the official view of the Nelson Diocese on any particular matter.
As Spanky wrote the other week, churches have all sorts of bits of tradition and culture that no one else has. So, what’s Advent? What are we celebrating?
Advent is a season that spans four Sundays and leads to Christmas – so, this year, it started last Sunday. Some of us pay a lot of attention to Church seasons like this, while others don’t, and that’s okay. But Advent can help us understand the deep story of Christmas and the deep things God is doing in us and through us.
Recently I have been doing some work trying to grow my understanding of the Book of Isaiah. It is a major book of prophecy from the time when God’s people had to go into exile in order to unlearn bad stuff they had been doing because they rejected God.
It is a book that we often read during Advent. For example, it’s Isaiah who says “Look! A virgin will conceive and have a son… He will be called ‘God with us’.”1
Isaiah is not always easy to understand – partly because it’s long and God is speaking to people in different situations, partly because it was written a long, long time ago, in a land far, far away.
BUT Isaiah speaks to and is written down for people just like us:
So… what?
The Lord says “Comfort, comfort my people – speak comfort to them – tell them their battles are over and they are forgiven.” The Lord says, “Make a pathway – I’m coming to save you!” A bit further on God says, “I will look after you like the kindest shepherd, and I will gather you in my arms.”2
Just like us, God’s people have been betraying God and God’s heart big time. They worship junk that isn’t God – chasing wealth and houses and being major consumers, and all at the cost of others. Their society is violent, greedy, and unfair.
God’s Spirit brings kindness and generosity and peace and patience and self-control. But God’s people are worshipping idols because they think the idols will give them all the stuff they want. But the idols teach them brokenness, not life. Sound familiar?
God has called, and called, and called. In the end they have to lose everything before they will listen. They end up defeated, at the very bottom, and a million miles from home. (Lord, I want to be a person who listens to you sooner, not later!)
Those “Comfort, comfort, comfort my people” words come at a turning point. At rock bottom, they can receive God’s love again, and God is ready to do the most amazing things to save them. Fifteen chapters follow, as one long message of God’s kindness, grace, and especially salvation – God’s rescue. For people just like us.
All this turns out to point to? Jesus! The Book of Isaiah is sometimes called “the fifth Gospel” – especially these middle chapters – and it’s because it is full of Jesus before he ever arrives.
“Okay, okay, okay,” I hear you say. “So what?”
What God says here in Isaiah is what God does at Christmas, and in the whole of Jesus’ story: his life – through his death, his resurrection and even his ascension. It is what God is still doing today through his Son and by the Spirit.
It reminds me of being a parent, especially of smaller children. There are those moments of devastation for us when we are small. Times when we simply are overwhelmed and we cannot cope. Those epic moments of meltdown when we are not necessarily being naughty, not being stupid or wrong – we simply have no answer to our overwhelm and there is no way up.
Sometimes it is still like that for me. My meltdowns are much more self-controlled, but the overwhelm can be very real. Too many things I can’t fix at work, too many people who need something from me, too many fears for my children and my parents and my household and Rebecca and the dog.
God comes down.
When one of my small children was overwhelmed, the best I could do was simply get down and hold them, gather them up in my arms, hold them until they stopped fighting me, hold them until they felt safe, and show them I would look after them.
God does that back in the time of Isaiah, but the promise then was that the real rescue would come soon when God would fully come down. The promise of a child who would learn and grow and become an adult, who would be God’s love in human flesh and who would fully save his people.
I am his child. He comforts me, he lifts me up, he holds me to his chest. He doesn’t leave me the same! When he rescues me – as he constantly does – he moves me onward. I am his child and he matures me. He teaches me through his Word and he fills me with his Spirit. He understands me and he loves me, he corrects me, even disciplines me – he judges me with his love and calls me to “better”. He calls me his friend as he teaches me his work.
This is far more than just a cuddle – and it is so, so good.
That's what Advent is about: God comes down.
Check out other articles in the
series below.
More articles in the
series are to come.
