In this episode, fellow POJCasters, Todd, Sal and Blake discuss the real meaning behind Advent and how modern celebrations often miss the point. Not to mention another awesome bonus segment for all our Party On Patrons. Don’t miss this awesome episode from your fave theo party dudes!
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ALSO IN SCRIPTURE “I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, ‘Look, God’s home is now among God’s people! God will live with them, and they will be God’s people. God Godself will be with them.’” (Revelation 21:3, NLT)
Image: AI-generated using DALL·E and customized by the author. Used with the devotional “From the Advent Archives: Why Advent?” at Life-Giving Water Devotions.
Advent is one of my favorite times of year. While it is true that I am not a big fan of winter or its weather, I really love the season of Advent and the great hope that it stands for. Throughout the majority of Christian history, the Church has, in one way or another, celebrated the coming Christ. With that said, Christmas (aka the coming of the Christ-child) was not always celebrated by the Church. In fact, it was quite controversial early on and, in some Christian circles, it still is.
The Church didn’t officially recognize the “feast day” of Christ’s birth (what became known as Christ’s Mass, or Christmas) until the fourth century. When we look at the Gospels themselves, only two of the four canonical Gospels (Matthew and Luke) actually account for the birth of the Christ-child. The other two canonical Gospels (Mark and John) do not mention the birth of Christ at all. Mark begins with Jesus’ baptism, and John simply states that the Word of God became flesh as Jesus (John 1:14). They clearly did not feel there was a significant reason to include the Nativity story in their accounts.
So then, why Advent? Regardless of the fact that only two of the four Gospels include the Nativity story, each of the four Gospels contains the Advent story. In fact, the entire Bible is an Advent story. Advent, of course, means “the arrival of a notable person, thing, or event.” All of Scripture points toward Advent when you really think about it. All of Scripture points toward the advent—the arrival—of Immanuel, “God with us.”
From the first humans through the Exodus, from the age of kings through the prophets, from exile through Roman occupation, from the birth of Jesus through the resurrection, from the apostles through the age in which we now live, this world is SCREAMING for the advent of God’s Kingdom—the advent of hope, healing, wholeness, justice, mercy, compassion, and grace.
Why Advent? Because we live in a broken world filled with broken people like ourselves. Why Advent? Because we live in a world filled with social injustice. Why Advent? Because we live in a world where people pour lighter fluid down the throats of teenagers and set them on fire. Why Advent? Because we live in a world where a few have everything and the majority have nothing. Why Advent? Because we all play a part in the reality of sin. Why Advent? Because we desire justice, long for mercy, and strive to live humbly.
Unfortunately, in our longing for Advent, we often miss a critically important point: Immanuel has already come.
GOD IS WITH US. GOD IS WITHIN US.
While we certainly await the coming of God’s Kingdom in all its fullness, and while Scripture is deeply shaped by Advent longing, it also points us to the reality of God’s presence with us now—God’s love for us and God’s Spirit within us. The question, then, isn’t Why Advent?
The question is Why wait?
What are we waiting for? God desires that we recognize God’s presence with us now. We no longer need to lie in wait. We no longer need to sit and hope for a savior to come and rescue us. That Savior has already come, has never left, and has no intention of leaving. As long as people open themselves to God, the Savior will remain present in the world.
Jesus didn’t call us to wait, but to BE AWAKE. Jesus didn’t call us into waiting—Jesus sent the disciples, and sends us, into action. Instead of waiting, actively take part in showing the world that GOD IS ALREADY HERE…
that GOD IS ALREADY WITH US…
that LOVE WINS.
THOUGHT OF THE DAY How are you bringing the reality of Immanuel into the world around you
PRAYER Lord, I am your vessel of hope, healing, and wholeness. Use me as a witness to your presence among all people. Amen.
ALSO IN SCRIPTURE “Indeed, the LORD will give justice to his people…” (Deuteronomy 32:36a, NLT)
Image: AI-generated using DALL·E and customized by the author. Used with the devotional “From the Advent Archives: Where Is the Justice?” at Life-Giving Water Devotions.
There come times in one’s life when it is realized that an act was far less timely in the moment it was committed to memory, and this is such a time. Eleven years ago, I saw the America I knew disintegrating—falling apart before my very eyes. Truthfully, we all did. Barack Obama was still president, a very consequential president, if not for anything else other than his race. Of course, he was consequential in many other ways too, but it was his race that would prove the most eye-opening for this country.
I grew up believing we lived in an America that was largely past racism. To be honest, I also grew up in an insular, small-town white bubble. What racism was I really exposed to? Plenty. But it was hidden in jokes, in what nuts were called, and in other subtleties that sound like normalities to people not on the receiving end of them. It ALWAYS bothered me, especially when I gave in and laughed or participated to “fit in.” Thankfully, I never got into the habit of it because I always disliked it. It made me uncomfortable. Why? Because I am an outcast too, and once you’ve been outcast for ANY reason, how can you then outcast others? It happens. But not on my watch.
What you are about to read is a devotion I published on December 5, 2014, in the wake of the acquittal decision in the Ferguson, MO / Michael Brown Jr. case. Now, more than ever, we can see that where we are today is not new, but something that had been brewing under the surface—where we like to keep things hidden.
In 1999, Mel Gibson starred in Payback, a 1950s-style crime thriller directed by Brian Helgeland. I say “1950s-style” because it had Mel Gibson narrating his own story in the kind of way you’d expect to see on the classic police show Dragnet. The twist is that Gibson’s character, Porter, is not a police officer, but a petty criminal who ends up being double-crossed by his former partner-in-crime and his estranged wife.
Porter had cheated on his wife who, to get back at him, joined forces with his partner to plot against him. They shoot him (with the intent of killing him) and steal $70,000 from him—money that he, no doubt, stole from someone else.
To make a long story short—and to do so without spoiling the gritty experience that the film is—Porter sets out to pay back (hence the film’s name) those who did him wrong. He wages a bloody and intense war on his former partner, his estranged wife, and eventually on the crime syndicate protecting them. By the end of the film you can’t help but wonder what justice, if any, was done. Still, it satisfies that inner need to see the “bad guy” get his in the end. Of course, Porter is a “bad guy” getting even with other “bad guys.” This is played up in the film’s slogan: Prepare to root for the bad guy.
There are times in our life when we feel we have been wronged by our family, our friends, our neighbors, and others. In those moments, we often cannot help but feel anger and the desire to get back at such people. Even when we aren’t seeking to get back at them ourselves, we wish that something would happen to them to “teach them a lesson.” We use terms like “karma” to express our wish for fate to slap them right where it counts—and, if possible, allow us to be there to witness it. I know that even while driving down the road, I have prayed that the person who cut me off would pass a police officer and get pulled over. I am sure I am not the only one who has prayed such a prayer.
We live in a world that sees REVENGE as justice. When things don’t go our way, when life seems unjust and no one seems to care that it is, we feel justified in taking things into our own hands and exacting our own brand of justice. In Ferguson, MO, for example, many protesters turned into rioters when they discovered that no charges were going to be brought against Officer Darren Wilson. As a result, a grieving family had to witness their son’s name being frivolously used to incite riots. Store owners and community members stood helplessly as they watched their neighborhoods burn. Innocent and peaceful protesters had to endure tear gas and fear for their lives, and police officers put their lives on the line to try and keep the situation under control.
Where’s the justice in all of that?
The fact is that our own brand of “justice” is often not justice at all. Revenge is not JUSTICE. Revenge is wrong, and it solves nothing. All it does is create more victims.
Image: AI-generated using DALL·E and customized by the author. Used with the devotional “From the Advent Archives: Where Is the Justice?” at Life-Giving Water Devotions.
When I think of God’s justice, I think of a 2014 picture of an officer who, in the midst of protests in Portland, Oregon over the Michael Brown case, hugged a twelve-year-old boy who was crying because he saw the world around him falling apart. He was feeling the weight of the grand jury’s decision to acquit the officer involved in the shooting and was concerned about police brutality toward young Black kids such as himself. In response to seeing the boy crying, the officer asked him what was wrong and, when the boy told him, he asked if he could have one of the “FREE HUGS” the boy’s protest sign was advertising.
JUSTICE is LOVE. JUSTICE is MERCY. Justice is KINDNESS.
While the world around us is often UNJUST, God is calling us to LIVE JUSTLY, to LOVE MERCY, and to WALK HUMBLY with God. That doesn’t mean we sit back and let the innocent get trampled; rather, it means we peacefully and lovingly stand in solidarity with the oppressed without falling victim to the urge to GET BACK at the oppressor. LIVE JUSTLY and inspire others—through actions of peace and love—to join you in doing the same.
THOUGHT OF THE DAY “Social justice cannot be attained by violence. Violence kills what it intends to create.” – Pope John Paul II
PRAYER Lord, help me to spread JUSTICE through peaceful actions of LOVE, MERCY, and COMPASSION. Amen.
ALSO IN SCRIPTURE “Then Isaiah said: ‘Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary mortals, that you weary my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.’” (Isaiah 7:13-14)
Image: AI-generated using DALL·E and customized by the author. Used with the devotional “From the Advent Archives: O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” at Life-Giving Water Devotions.
It is hard to put into words the fear, anxiety, sadness, depression, and confusion that ran through most people’s minds at the close of this past Friday, December 14. By the end of the day, after watching the drama unfold on live TV, we learned that 28 people had been shot and killed at an elementary school in Connecticut. Of the 28, twenty were children between the ages of six and seven years old.
Oftentimes, in tragedies such as this, people ask, “Where is God in all of this?” After all, what kind of God would allow children to be born and grow up in a world that is seemingly as evil as this one? What kind of God would create “monsters” who go out and destroy the innocent? What kind of God would be so cold as to not intervene when the lives of the innocent are at stake?
These are all valid and good questions to ask. It is also safe to say that there really aren’t any answers that fully satisfy our need to understand how evil and God coexist. I could offer a ton of Christian clichés that sound good off the cuff, but that would only simplify something very complex. So, rather than offering easy answers to really tough questions, I will provide one of many possible ways in which we can reflect on what happened and what our response will be.
It is very easy for us to look only at where we don’t see God and miss where we *are* seeing God. For instance, we look at someone like Adam Lanza [the shooter at Sandy Hook Elementary School] and see his actions as proof of God failing to be with us. Yet we fail to see that God was with the principal who lunged at Adam and became the first to be shot and killed. God was with the teachers as they did everything they could — including covering children with their own bodies — to save their students. God was with the first responders.
God is also with those now looking at ways to address the societal issues that allow people like Adam to fall through the cracks unnoticed until it is too late. When Jesus called His disciples to care for “the least of these,” that included those who suffer from mental illness. Yet, in our society, mental illness is stigmatized, and our health care system often doesn’t provide affordable ways for people suffering from mental illness to get the kind of care (not just drugs and a locked asylum door) that they need.
The fact of the matter is that bad things do happen. People have free will and choose to do all sorts of things that God would not wish for anyone to choose. But aside from that, we still have a God who loves us, a God who is with us, a God who provides hope even in the darkest circumstances.
The Nativity story is a reminder of the hope of Emmanuel — God with us. This God came to earth and became one of us; this God put others first and sought to be present with all people regardless of their status or condition. This God was crucified by God’s own creation and resurrected back to life despite being put to death. This God is the same God who was present with the teachers, administrators, and first responders who worked desperately to save as many as possible, risking their own lives in the process. This God is the same God who is turning the media’s attention from labeling Adam “the face of evil” to examining how people like Adam have not received the care they needed.
While we cannot definitively answer why bad things like this happen — beyond the obvious realities of free will, broken systems, and human sin — we certainly can still have the hope of Emmanuel. Let us not forget that God never leaves us nor forsakes us. We can know that God is with us, and we can let God guide us to be instrumental in sparking the changes needed in our communities, the very changes that could protect other children and people from acts of evil.
Let us welcome Emmanuel into this world by seeing God’s revelation in us. We have been equipped to be the presence of God in the lives of those in need, whether they are children in distress or the unnoticed Adams slipping through the cracks. Let us be like the writer of Hebrews who confidently proclaims, “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid” (Hebrews 13:6).
THOUGHT OF THE DAY We need not look any further than our own hearts, and the hearts of those around us, to find God.
PRAYER Lord, I thank You for always being present with me, and thank You for revealing Your presence in me. Let me witness to that Good News! Amen.
