What do you look forward to?

There are all sorts of things we look forward to in different times and seasons of life. As we take part in the Advent season we look forward to Christmas and all that it brings: time with friends and family, laughter, sights and smells, food, music, and gift-giving.

Advent is a time of anticipation and waiting for what is to come.

We say it every year because it is true, “Jesus is the reason for the season.” What we as believers look most forward to isn’t a visit from a jolly old elf who leaves presents for all the morally obedient boys and girls – we look to The Saviour who in spite of our moral failure stepped into our world, “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:6-11).

That is what Advent leads to.

The Eternal Son who was involved in creating the very world we live in steps into His creation fulfilling the promise of what Advent is ultimately about – God with us. We are not deists. We do not believe in a God who “created but has no continuing involvement with the world and events in it.”[1] We believe in the One True God who loved us so much that He came to save us at great cost and invites us into His story as He redeems and restores our broken world.

The Apostle Paul also says in 2 Corinthians 1:20, “For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory.” We can have hope and peace because God’s promises are met in Jesus. The Old Testament Scriptures point forward to this glorious truth that we celebrate not only this time of year but every week as we gather to bow our knees and “confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” And we look forward to His coming again when He will finally set all things right, when “He will wipe away every tear from our eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, for the former things have passed away…and He who was seated on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new’” (Rev. 21:4-5).

God is with us and He’s coming again!

[1] Erickson, The Concise Dictionary of Christian Theology, 48.