An Advent Meditation

In mid-eighth century B. C. Isaiah proclaimed the children of Israel to be a people who walked in darkness and lived in a land of deep darkness. But he spoke those words as part of a message of hope. A great light was coming to pierce the darkness. A child would be born: a Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. This son of David would be the long-awaited Messiah. His reign would signal the beginning of a time of eternal peace, justice, and righteousness. This is the hope of Israel described In Isaiah 9:2-7.

Isaiah spoke other words vividly describing the coming Messiah’s rule. In chapter seven he prophesied the coming of Emmanuel, of “God-with-us.” This Emmanuel, this Messiah, would be the just and righteous Lord over the whole earth. His reign would bring an end to the centuries- old cycle of wars between the various nations. It would be such a time of peace, that according to Isaiah 2:4, swords would be beaten into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks. The tools of war would become the tools of planting and reaping.

Over the long centuries Israel waited for this Messiah. They endured exile and celebrated deliverance from it only to see their nation ruled by first the Persians, and then the Greeks, and finally the Romans. 750 years after Isaiah’s prophecies they still walked in darkness; they still lived lives of humiliation and subjugation.

And then came Jesus, the One who was Emmanuel, the One who was Messiah. With his coming the reign of God broke into time and history. Eternal light shined into the world’s gloom. Salvation was at hand for those who believed that Jesus truly was the long-awaited Messiah.

But Jesus was a different kind of Messiah. His Kingdom had nothing to do with military might and political rule. It was a Kingdom of the heart. The deliverance he offered was not from Roman subjugation but from the deadly consequences of sin. He taught forgiveness, humility, and servanthood. He commanded his followers to love one another with a self-sacrificing love.

And then he did the most non-messianic thing possible: he died, on a cross. He took upon himself the sins of the world. He suffered the deadly consequences of our sinfulness. The darkness got darker. Hopelessness ruled. And then he was raised from the dead. Good overcame evil. Righteousness overcame sin. Life was snatched from the jaws of death. After forty days he ascended into heaven. But not before promising to come again.

And thus Israel’s prayers for a Messiah were replaced by the church’s prayer, “Come, Lord Jesus!” Come, Lord Jesus, and bring to fruition God’s Kingdom in all its glorious fullness. Come, Lord Jesus, finalize the defeat of sin, death, evil, and darkness. Come, Lord Jesus, bring into existence the new heaven and new earth promised in Scripture. Come, Lord Jesus, come, just as you promised you would.

When the Apostle Paul wrote his letter to the Romans he did so assuming that the coming of the Lord was imminent. So he wrote with urgency, telling them that the time of darkness was coming to an end, that the eternal light of God's rule was about to break in. Therefore he instructed those Roman Christians to live lives suitable for the new age Jesus would bring into being. There was no room in such lives for ungodly behaviors like those practiced daily in Rome: the moral dissipation of drunken partying and orgies, of wanton and shameless sexual misconduct. These were not behaviors fit for their eternal King. As D. Stuart Briscoe wrote in his commentary, “With great determination we are to throw off those things in our life that have no place in eternity…”

There were some other behaviors that they were also supposed to throw off, sins of the flesh just as deadly as those mentioned above: excess competitiveness that led to quarreling and jealousy that led to envy and covetousness. These were vices that attacked church’s unity and damaged the love that was supposed to mark the Christian community. Quoting Dr. Briscoe once more, “Many Christians have ‘put off’ the eternal evidence of selfish excess and indulgence but have failed to recognize that the unresolved conflicts and intolerable fractions of their Christian relationships are simply the same fleshly attitudes dressed up in more acceptable garb.”

William Barclay wrote that, “Like so many great men, Paul was haunted by the shortness of time.” Paul’s sense of the timing of our Lord’s return proved to be inaccurate. We are still praying, “Come, Lord Jesus!” This does not, however, dampen the urgency of Paul’s message. Jesus himself told us that no one other than our Father God knows the time or the hour of his return. He will come when he comes, like a thief in the night. We must be ready. We must be alert. We must be awake.

And even if the Lord does not return in our lifetime, our time on earth will come to an end. We will all die on some day not of our choosing. It may come later. It may come sooner. But it will surely come. Like Paul, we should be haunted by the shortness of time.

Meanwhile, Paul’s message is still valid. We must throw off those things not suited for eternity. We must not waste what time we have on selfish excesses and indulgences. We must obey our Lord’s command to love one another. We must live out our lives together in the community of faith in ways that build up Christ’s Body, not in ways that tear it down or apart. Each of us must prayerfully continue moving in the direction of Christ-likeness.

This is Advent, a time of celebrating the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecies, a time of expectant waiting for our Lord to come again. Above all it is a time to “lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light;” a time in which we are called to “live honorably.” Amen.