Preparing for an Advent / 1 Peter 1:10-12 / Hebrews 9:28
Well, church, it is good to see you here this week. As you grab a seat, if you have a Bible with you, go ahead and turn to 1 Peter chapter 1. We are going to get there in just a bit, I promise. If you are a guest with us today, my name is Shaye Summerlin, one of the pastors here.
I do not know if you are aware of it or not, but we happen to find ourselves right in the middle of the Christmas season. We had an idea this was coming back in August when Home Depot, Target, Walmart, and everybody else began putting out all the decorations right along with Halloween, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and everything in between. But specifically for the church, this season begins right on the heels of Thanksgiving and runs all the way through Christmas Day, maybe into the New Year. This is a truly special time for us as a church, as those who follow Jesus Christ. Historically, it is known as Advent.
Some of you may have heard that term “Advent” before. For those unfamiliar with it, it is a Latin term that simply means “coming” or “arrival.” It is a term we use to express the first Advent of Jesus, in which He came into the world as our Savior to save us from our sins. Historically, the church has viewed these weeks leading up to Christmas as an opportunity to contemplate and think upon the Advent of Christ.
Now, some of you who are familiar with that term might think, as I used to think: “Isn’t that kind of a Catholic deal? Isn’t that something practiced by churches with high liturgical backgrounds or traditional churches? Kind of like practicing Lent around Easter—what is Advent?” I would say to that, yes, traditional churches practice it, but I would also say that Western, Protestant, and non-denominational churches have often missed out on an incredible opportunity to think deeply about the implications of this season.
The Culture of Hurry vs. The Grace of Waiting
Our Western culture is deeply defined by hurry and impatience. We want what we want, and usually we want it right now. We do not want to wait for it. It is the reason why so many stores start putting Christmas merchandise out around Labor Day. It confuses us all because we cannot wait for the natural succession of holidays to run their course. We have to have it now.
It is also the reason why we tend to skip right over Thanksgiving. Have you ever thought about that? Thanksgiving just gets shortchanged. You walk into a store, and there is Halloween stuff everywhere, and the very next aisle is packed with inflatables for Christmas. Thanksgiving gets that little island with paper plates, napkins, and thin vinyl tablecloths. That is about all Thanksgiving gets—not much press—because we skip right over it in our rush to get to Christmas.
It is the same reason why December tends to be one of the most frantic months of the entire year for so many of us. Coming right out of Black Friday, we enter the hurried shopping experiences, getting bombarded with advertisements. On top of the shopping, you have decorating the house, and on top of that, you have Christmas parties one after another. It becomes a frantic season because we are in such a rush to get there: “Let’s just get to the twenty-fifth, and then we will move on.” In fact, on Christmas Eve, if you go into the store for last-minute shopping, you will probably see Valentine’s gifts already out because the culture is already moving on to the next thing. That is our culture. We cannot wait for anything. We have to hurry it up.
For the church, however, I would argue that there is so much to be gained in the waiting. There is tremendous spiritual opportunity in the waiting, and that is what focusing on Advent can do for us. If done right, these weeks leading up to Christmas provide an opportunity to see what it was like to be Israel of old, waiting for the darkness to lift. It gives us an opportunity to rejoice in His arrival and in the fulfilled promises of God.
At the same time, as we look back on that first Advent, this season can also teach us how to wait for the second Advent—the return of Jesus that we are still waiting for today. We can use these weeks to kindle afresh our affections and our longing for Jesus Christ. That is what the season of Advent can be: a season of looking and longing, of waiting and hoping, a season of heart preparation and renewal.
My hope in this message, and throughout these weeks before Christmas arrives, is that we might practice some disciplines that will lift our eyes and our affections upward to Jesus Christ—far above the presents, far above the trees and lighting, far above all the decorations. May we lift our hearts to Christ so that we might seek Him, savor Him, and worship Him for who He is and what He has promised yet to do.
The Promise in the Garden
Before we can look ahead at that hope, it is helpful to look back and ask the question we ask every year: Why did Jesus come in the first place? Why was there ever a first Advent before we can even talk about a second Advent?
If you have been at The Well for any length of time, you know we say this over and over again: the Bible teaches us that the world we exist in now is not the world as it once was. I am not just talking about cultural shifts from the fifties to the sixties to the seventies. I am talking about the state of the human condition. The world as we know it is not as it was originally designed to be. Our world is broken.
The world around us has done much to try to figure out why this planet is broken, offering a variety of human solutions to fix it. Yet century after century, despite all our advancements, we remain just as broken as we have ever been. Nothing has worked, and we remain in darkness. You can just turn on the news any day of the week to be reminded of how deep that darkness is.
Scripture defines our problem as deeply internal: it is the issue of sin. Sin is our rebellion against God that led to alienation from Him and brought judgment upon the earth and the human condition, fracturing God’s original, perfect design. That alienation separated us, leaving us in a state of hopelessness and despair that cannot be corrected by human effort or human imagination. We cannot fix this problem on our own. When sin entered the world in the garden thousands of years ago, darkness settled over the land.
Here is the beautiful truth: in the midst of the darkness that entered the garden with Adam and Eve, God made a promise. He promised that the one thing you and I could not fix, He would fix Himself. One day, He would send someone who would put back together what we destroyed through sin, bringing about total restoration.
That is why I tell people that the hope of Christmas did not begin in a manger; it began in a garden when God first promised the hope that would come. One day, He would send a Savior into the world to redeem us.
The Longing of the Prophets
Over the next several thousand years, God began to unveil that promise, one detail at a time. Like an onion being peeled back layer by layer throughout the Old Testament, generation after generation witnessed God revealing small details about who this Savior would be, how He would come, when He would come, and what He would do. God’s people clung to those promises, longing for the day when they would be fulfilled.
Even the prophets who recorded much of the Old Testament longed to know who they were prophesying about. Look at how Peter describes this in 1 Peter chapter 1. As we read this, feel the weight of what they were experiencing—sitting in darkness, waiting for the light to break through, long before the cross was understood.
1 Peter 1:10-12 (NASB)
As to this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that [would come] to you made careful searches and inquiries, seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you, in these things which now have been announced to you through those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven– things into which angels long to look.
Did you catch that? Think of Isaiah sitting down under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. As he pens Isaiah 53 about the suffering servant who would be pierced for our transgressions, take our iniquities upon Himself, and give us His righteousness, Isaiah is asking, “Lord, who is this? When will this happen? I want to know how this will come about.” Think of Micah writing about the Savior coming from Bethlehem, wondering, “Is it now? When will this take place?”
They longed for that day, but verse 12 tells us it was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves, but you. Through the Spirit of God, they understood that the fulfillment of these prophecies was reserved for a future day, so that you and I might understand them and enjoy them to the fullest extent. These were things into which even angels longed to look.
Just sit in that for a moment. These prophets longed to know what you and I know. They longed to understand the depths of the grace that we have received in Christ Jesus. Even the angelic realm looked with wonder upon the glorious truth that God would become a man and enter the world to save us. Generation after generation waited and hoped for the coming Messiah who would lift the darkness and save them from their sins.
We wanted you to feel that tension when you walked into the service today—to feel what Israel felt as they anxiously waited for the darkness to lift. Have you ever been in a season where you were desperately waiting for something? Maybe you are struggling financially and waiting for a check in the mail or a deposit to clear so you can get out of the red. Maybe you are facing a medical issue and waiting on test results from the doctor. Or maybe you are longing to be pregnant; you try month after month, longing for the day when two lines appear. You know the pain and disappointment when another month passes and it does not happen. You feel despair, yet right behind it, hope rises again: “Maybe next month. Maybe soon.”
That is how Israel felt toward their coming Savior with each prophecy. That is why we opened our service reading from Isaiah 8 and 9 about a people walking in darkness waiting for light to break through, and why we sang:
O come, O come, Emmanuel, And ransom captive Israel, That mourns in lonely exile here, Until the Son of God appear. O come, Thou Dayspring, come and cheer Our spirits by Thine advent here; Disperse the gloomy clouds of night, And death’s dark shadows put to flight.
That was the angst and longing they carried in the waiting.
Joy to the World: The First Advent
Then, one night in Bethlehem, it happened. All those promises came true in a baby lying in a manger. Our Rescuer had come. A child who was fully God and fully man, who would grow up and do for us what we could never do for ourselves: fix the problem of sin that has damaged our world.
Jesus lived a perfectly righteous life without sin. He laid down His life for us, absorbing the wrath of God that we deserved. He shed His blood for the forgiveness of our sins, a gift to be received by faith through His grace, not by our works. He rose from the dead, conquering sin, Satan, and death itself, granting us redeemed life and adopting us as sons and daughters. He reconciled us back to the Father from whom we had been alienated. A promise that began in the garden was fulfilled in a manger and culminated on a cross. After all that longing and waiting, He came.
That is why we read from Matthew and Luke about His birth in Bethlehem, and from John 1, which declares that in Him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it. In response, we sang, “Joy to the world! The Lord is come; let earth receive her King!”
When the human heart truly understands that mercy has been granted, that shame has been driven away, and that we have been given new life, the natural response is overflowing joy. That is why we celebrate Christmas. We celebrate the first Advent: God becoming man to save us from our sins.
The Mountain Peaks: Waiting for the Second Advent
Yet no sooner had this taken place, no sooner was Emmanuel with us, than He departed.
You can imagine the confusion of the early disciples. All those prophecies declared that the Messiah would suffer and bear our sins, but they also said He would rule, conquer our enemies, and reign with us forever. When He ascended, they wondered why that second part had not yet happened.
As we have discussed before, that confusion came from viewing two distinct Advents as a single event. When the Old Testament prophets looked ahead, they saw the suffering Servant and the reigning King as one continuous horizon. It is like looking at two distant mountain peaks: from far away, they appear to be one single mountain. It is only when you draw near that you realize there is a vast valley between them. There is a first Advent, and there is a second Advent.
Because of this, Christmas takes on an entirely new meaning for us on this side of the cross. On one hand, we have the privilege of looking back and celebrating God becoming man to save us from our sin. But on the other hand, Christmas provides an opportunity to train our hearts to wait—just like Israel of old—for the next Advent. In that second coming, He will not come to deal with sin, but to rule, reign, and bring our ultimate redemption.
Here we stand, living between the cross and the crown, waiting once again. With each passing day, we learn to fix our hope on the promises of God, trusting that He is not only a promise maker, but a promise keeper. He will return just as He said He would.
Hebrews 9:28 (NASB)
so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without [reference to] sin, to those who eagerly await Him.
Cultivating the Discipline of Waiting
These weeks leading up to Christmas are pregnant with opportunity for us to learn and celebrate the discipline of waiting, hoping, and longing. But embracing this requires intentionality.
First, as the gathered church, we have an opportunity to push back against the hurried pace of our culture and slow things down. We can choose not to get swept away by the cultural current that constantly rushes to the next thing and knows nothing of waiting. We can redeem these weeks by meditating on the promises of God in both His first Advent and His second Advent.
I want to encourage you to build intentional disciplines into your schedule over the next couple of weeks. Open the Word of God and meditate on the passages concerning His first coming and the salvation He purchased. Then turn to the passages describing His second coming, reflecting on the ultimate redemption we eagerly await. Use this season to listen to what God wants to say to you in the waiting.
To help you with this, we have placed several Advent resources on our church website. There are links to helpful articles, incredible books, and family devotionals designed to help you view Christmas through this biblical lens.
My own family approaches this a little differently each year. One tradition we keep is using an Advent calendar with little doors that open each day to build a manger scene. My kids have figured out by now that day twenty-five is always Jesus, but the daily practice teaches the discipline of waiting: He is coming, He is faithful, and He has not forgotten His promises. We also use devotions to remind ourselves what it was like to sit in darkness longing for the light, stirring our affections for Christ amidst the noise of the season. The enemy would love to use even good holiday traditions to distract us from the ultimate treasure, which is Jesus Christ.
Finally, if you are here today and church is new to you, or you have never placed your personal faith in Jesus Christ, I invite you to consider the first Advent. Take time over these next couple of weeks to honestly contemplate the brokenness of our world and the darkness within the human heart. Consider God’s promise to remedy that brokenness through His Son. I encourage you to put your trust in Jesus, receive the free gift of His salvation, walk in newness of life, and let your heart be filled with the hope of His return.
Consider the words of James as we wait:
James 5:7-8 (NASB)
Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious produce of the soil, being patient about it, until it gets the early and late rains. You too be patient; strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near.
What a tremendous opportunity we have this Christmas to strengthen our hearts and deepen our love for the One who came to save us and who has promised to return.
Closing Prayer
Would you pray with me?
Father, we recognize that we live in a world where our hearts are easily distracted. It is so easy, especially during this season, to forget what our affections were created and redeemed for: Jesus Christ. It is so easy for our hearts to drift toward lesser things.
I pray that You would help us, as Your church, to embrace the discipline of waiting over these coming weeks. Teach us that You are at work even in the delay, and that Your timing is good and purposeful. Use this waiting to deepen our love and longing for You.
We love You, Lord, and we thank You for Your Son, Jesus Christ. We celebrate Him not only during this season, but every day of our lives. Help us to live faithfully in light of His second coming, fueled by the grace of His first. For the glory of Your name and the good of Your people we pray, Amen.