Advent - re-setting our priorities

This coming Sunday, 29th November 2020, is Advent Sunday. Advent is a season that has been eased out of many churches nowadays which I feel is a great shame. In fact the whole Church calendar has been discarded in favour of celebrating just the big ones – Christmas, Easter and Pentecost. 

I would love to see the season of Advent make a comeback in every church not just the more traditional ones. Advent helps us prepare our hearts to celebrate the first coming of Jesus. We remind ourselves that Emmanuel – God with us, God made Man – came and lived on this Earth.  I like to use Advent to meditate on the wonder of this and the role the key players had in the birth of Jesus.

However, the more important aspect of Advent is that it helps us focus on the Second Coming of Jesus, the conclusion of all the first things and the shutting of the door to the old era and anticipating the new. 

This event, due to its delay, is not so much forgotten as placed on the back burner for future reference if needed.  The difficulty arises when like the wise and foolish virgins in Matthew 25: 1 – 13 we can easily get caught out. We know the bridegroom is coming but it may not be in my lifetime, so I’ll not attend to my lamp.  We forget we must always be ready. Indeed Jesus concludes the parable with, ‘Therefore keep watch, because you do no know the day or the hour.’  In fact Jesus labours this point that we must be ready because no one knows when Jesus will come again.  

Advent is a really useful time to remind ourselves of this; to review our preparedness for Jesus’ Second coming. Have we been effective witnesses, have we remembered the poor, the widows, the orphans? Will I bring sheaves of corn with me or have I been preoccupied with my own life, with virus, lockdown, and Christmas preparations? Or am I anticipating with joy Jesus’ Second Coming and the Wedding Feast of the Lamb?

I believe God is using the virus to work out something truly incredible on the planet – to see revival, souls saved, restoration and preparation before the Second Coming. 

As we consider Advent this year, I believe our response needs to be a deep clean in our own lives and in the life of the Church. Christians are all part of the Body of Christ and each one of us has a role and responsibility to be the solution and not the problem. 

Jesus needs his Church firing on all cylinders bringing the Kingdom to this world and we all have a part to play. We are all significant because only you have the connections and influence that you have. God wants to use you to bring life and hope and to show the way out of the virus of sin into a new life. 

Speaking from experience, it is all too easy to dwell on the disappointments of 2020 but God is calling us to rise up and bring light and hope to a world that has badly lost it way. We are called to pray and influence the nations so when Jesus comes again we will be ready, expectant and our lamps full of the oil of the Holy Spirit. 

Advent is a great time to re-set our priorities, to rejoice in God becoming Man, Emmanuel, but with fresh faith prepare ourselves for the Advent of Jesus, the soon coming King. 

Crowds are remarkably fickle

Crowds are remarkably fickle. They are easily influenced. Crowds followed Jesus wherever he went enjoying the miracles, hoping to be fed and generally in it for themselves. 

When Jesus entered Jerusalem just a week before his crucifixion, the crowd, inspired I think by the Holy Spirit, welcomed him with great enthusiasm shouting ‘Hosanna. Blessed is he that comes in the Name of the Lord.’ They laid branches and clothes on the road and gave Jesus the right royal welcome that he deserved. 

There would have been crowds in Jerusalem all week, there for the Passover but when Jesus was arrested, tried and sentenced to death this same crowd who had been following him for years, had welcomed him into Jerusalem, turned on him and egged on by the religious leaders bayed for his blood. Jesus was deserted by not just the disciples, but also the crowd. 

Several weeks later the crowd were back in Jerusalem for the Feast of Weeks or Pentecost and drawn by the sound of rushing wind, they gathered and Peter preached his famous sermon and the fickle crowd who had deserted Jesus in their droves now turned to him to receive salvation. What a glorious day!

In these uncertain days of coronavirus, how essential it is that we are disciples of Jesus and not just part of the crowd. Crowds are notorious for yelling for what they want and not necessarily what’s good for everyone. We only have to see how crowds gather in complete defiance of government rules for our safety to do what they want. 

We are called to be people who follow Jesus and are influenced by what he is doing in these days. There are plenty of prophets of doom but not nearly enough prophets who bring the good news of Jesus and his salvation. The crowd is baying for lockdown or no lockdown and especially for their right to celebrate Christmas as they want to. They want a ‘normal’ Christmas but it is almost certain that is the one thing we won’t be having.

This must be the year when the Church gets out of their buildings and proclaims that Christmas is not about family, children, parties, presents or anything else, but about the birth of Jesus Christ. As Christians let’s focus on that – celebrating that in whatever way we can, bringing the good news of Jesus wherever we can and telling of his great love whenever and however we can.  

The amazing news in the midst of all this gloom is that God became Man and dwelt amongst us. As Christians we must tell of how we have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only, full of grace and truth. Everyone can experience this.

I am hoping and praying that the Church will get out onto the streets this Christmas and be a different crowd – an army of Godly followers not following the crowd but bringing the crowd to Jesus.