Waiting for Jesusنموونە

PREPARING OUR HEARTS

Christ came.

Christ comes.

Christ will come again.

This summarizes the season of Advent.

Many of us organize life around a cultural calendar of holidays and school breaks. But for the person who wants to live into the story of Jesus, the new year doesn’t begin when January 1 arrives. It begins with the news that God came. And that he comes. And that he will come again. Advent re­minds us that fresh starts and new beginnings are not prod­ucts of our willpower or dates on a page but rather expressions of God’s grace in Christ.

Advent means “arrival.”

This season compels us to look for the one who arrived on earth two thousand years ago and still arrives in our world today. It’s what Christmas is all about: “God with us” (Matthew 1:23, NIV).

As we all know from the busyness of the Christmas season, preparing for Christmas is often not focused on Christ. We are culturally formed to prepare more for the arrival of Santa than the coming of Jesus. But the season of Advent invites us to prepare our hearts and our attentiveness to Christ’s work in our lives. It opens us up to the surprising ways of God. In Advent, we are invited to wrestle with our longing, desires, and hopes. We recall the biblical truth that the renewal of our lives and our world is found in God’s coming among us in Jesus Christ. Advent is a season to reignite a spirit of prayer. Advent trains us in hopeful waiting.

To wait well is part of the Christian life. Yet this is what I know to be true about my life and yours: In this season, we might not wait well. We might become impatient and dis­gruntled and lose hope. But the good news of Advent is not that we are faithful in our waiting; it’s that God is faithful in his coming.

Lord Jesus, in this season of Advent, I believe you want to speak to me in a deep and personal way. May I be attentive to your voice. May I prepare my heart to receive you with great joy. Amen.