December 1, 2024
Something went right this week—two things actually—in areas that has only gone wrong recently, and that’s with the government and the postal service.
First, my passport had been expired for three years and I just couldn’t be bothered to renew it, for some reason. So I finally got around to it, and was pleased to find out that all of it could be done online.I could even take my own picture and upload it to the State Department website. I did all this on November 19, and they acknowledged my payment on November 20 and told me that, since I hadn’t ordered an expedited passport that would take two weeks, my processing time would be four to six weeks.
But, in reality, I got my passport in the mail on November 29, exactly nine days after they got my payment. The same day that I began the passport process, I ordered a hymnal all the way from England. It’s called Singing the Faith, and it’s the current hymnal of the British Methodists. I got it—once again, all the way from England—on the same day as the passport, November 29.
I mention all this to tell you where I came by the words to the song that I want to share with you. It’s by Maggi Dawn, and she wrote these words for the Advent season:
Into the darkness of this world, in the shadows of the night:
Into this loveless place you came, lightened our burdens,
eased our pain, and made these hearts your home.
Into the darkness once again—O come, Lord Jesus, come.
Come with your love to make us whole, come with your light to lead us on,
driving the darkness far from our souls; O come, Lord Jesus, come.
So today is the first Sunday of Advent, and I might as well have greeted you this morning by saying Happy New Year. That’s because it’s the first Sunday of the first season of the church (liturgical) year. Advent means coming, and we call it that because today we begin our preparation for the advent—the coming—of God’s Son into the world.
With any new beginning comes hope, and as we let go of all the difficulties of the year that is past, we hope that this Christmas will bring us something better—that this Christmas, we’ll do better… or at least start doing better.
We love Christmas, and we associate it with certain Bible stories from Matthew and Luke. But in reality, Christmas itself isn’t biblical. It’s pretty clear that Christmas wasn’t celebrated by the earliest Christians. And the Bible doesn’t give us any clue as to when we should celebrate it. Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost, sure—they’re in the Bible and we can pinpoint the days. But Christmas? We don’t know the day, the month, or even the season.
We talk a lot about a non-existent war on Christmas. But in reality, the only time such a war ever existed in this country was in 17th-century Plymouth and Boston—places where it was illegal to celebrate Christmas, for the very reason I mentioned above: It simply isn’t biblical.
But that argument has long since been thrown out the window. Christmas may not be a biblical holiday, but it’s the day we celebrate one of the most profound theological concepts in the Bible: the Incarnation, Emmanuel, the coming of God into our midst. So I think it could be argued that we celebrate Christmas because, deep down, we need to celebrate what Christmas stands for.
And Advent is just as important. Because the Bible tells us over and over (and over) again to wait for the Lord and to put our hope in God’s promises. The psalmist says, I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope (130:5), and hoping and waiting are connected throughout the scriptures—in fact, in some languages, hope and wait are the same word. So it’s only natural that today, on the first day of the season of waiting, we also hope.
We hope that the Baby in the manger will bring us renewal. We need to renew our faith in God and either start or re-start a relationship with God. Emmanuel, God-with-us, shows us not only that this is possible, but also that this is what God wants. Why else would God come to us in the flesh? Certainly not to grow more distant from us, more remote from our thoughts and affections. Jesus is the most glorious proof that God loves us and wants to be close to us.
We also hope to renew our relationships with the people in our lives—our family, our friends, our neighbors. At Christmastime, we remember that when God came to us, it was as part of a family. It was as Someone who had friends, and who reached out to his neighbors—even those neighbors that nobody else liked.
We also hope that the world can be a better place. The newborn Baby shows us that God is about new beginnings, and that everyone from the lowliest shepherd to the foreign king is called to his cradle. The stable and the feeding trough, the shepherds and the wise men, they confirm to us something we had been hoping for: That there’s nobody on earth that Messiah would shun, no place on earth that God can’t be found.
So let’s treasure this knowledge in our hearts this morning as we hear God’s call—not to the manger on the First Sunday of Advent, but to the table. So come with hope. Something better awaits than what surrounds you now. There’s new life, restored relationships, and a whole new world.
Come in peace and know that it’s not by God’s purpose that the world is divided up the way it is. The scriptures promise that not just a chosen few, but all people will make their way to God. Come, be part of the universal feast.
Come with joy; you’re part of the family. No matter who you are or where you are on life’s journey, you’re welcome here at the table. Your weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning, and even now, we can see the Son’s rays bringing light to the darkness.
Come in love. Perhaps we weren’t sure before, but now we know for a fact: God loves the world—and this is how: God sent God’s Son, so that everyone who places their trust in him might know what life is. And it is God’s love that binds us together around the table of the Lord.
Come and be made whole. Hope and peace, joy and love—these are what complete us. Though the world seems fragmented now, in God all things are made new; all things are made whole.
I’ll close this invitation to the table with the final stanza of the song I quoted at the beginning.
Let us pray:
O Holy Child, Emmanuel, hope of the ages,
God with us, visit again this broken place,
till all the earth declares your praise and your great mercies own.
Now let your love be born in us, O come, Lord Jesus, come.
Come in your glory, take your place, Jesus, the Name above all names,
we long to see you face-to-face, O come, Lord Jesus, come.
—©2023 Sam Greening
