Advent
Louise Duval
MA, LPC, LAC, CAC
12/3/2024
Advent: Coming into place, view, or being; arrival.
December 1st is the first day of Advent this year. Advent has two meanings for us. One is that as we move toward Christmas, we celebrate and remember Jesus coming to earth as a baby, being both fully God and fully man. But for us, it also has another meaning that is often overlooked: we are also looking forward to the second coming of Jesus.
The first Advent started after Adam and Eve sinned in the garden. At that point, God promised to send a rescuer because sin had broken His relationship with His creation, but it was many years after that when the promise was fulfilled. As the people waited, God continued to speak to His people and gave hints through the prophets of how the rescuer would come and what He would be like, but sin and darkness continued to be a genuine part of the people’s everyday lives. Then, after the prophets, the people had 400 years of silence. One of the prophecies of Jesus’ birth is recorded in Isaiah 9:2: “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death, a light has dawned.” When Jesus was born, God’s voice was again heard in the cry of a baby, and the silence of God, which had lasted 400 years, was ended.
I am sure there were times in those 400 years when there was doubt about whether God was really going to send a rescuer, and some may have forgotten. I don’t know about you, but our world looks pretty dark to me many days. I am thankful that we have the Holy Spirit that gives us hope, encouragement, and direction, but darkness and sin are a reality apart from the Spirit living in God’s people. The darkness we feel when we see the sin and brokenness around us as we wait for the second coming of Jesus is a glimpse of what the people before Jesus came to Earth experienced.
Maybe after we return from celebrating Christmas, the proper response would be the same as the people who experienced His first coming. In the scripture, we are told, “The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.” (Luke 2:20). We wait differently now than the people before Jesus. We have hope because we can see that everything promised before Jesus’s first coming happened precisely as He said, so we can trust that Jesus will come again, just as He said. We also have Jesus’s death and resurrection that show how Jesus took the punishment for sin and promised that one day, we will be with Him forever.
God wants everyone to experience this, so as we wait, we are experiencing His patience, “The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (Peter 3:9). We wait in the hope of Jesus’s second coming because we remember His first coming. The Bible also tells us how we should wait, “So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with Him” (2 Peter 3:14). God has left us here to be a light in a dark world, each time you share the hope you have in Jesus, the light shines bright in this dark world. Each time a person receives the truth you share, you are a part of God’s restoration in a broken world, and one more person can wait with hope for Jesus’s second coming!
As we look at the darkness of sin, we can be thankful for the first coming of Jesus, which we celebrate at Christmas, and anticipate the second and final coming when God will make us and the whole world perfect and we will get to live with Him forever! That is a hope worth sharing, and it will bring light to a dark world!