Make Advent More than "The Christmas Season"

Many of us make the four
weeks leading up to Christmas
into something it's not.

For the longest time, I thought "Advent" was just a fancy word for "the Christmas season," a holier, maybe more spiritual-sounding word for an otherwise hectic and overly-commercialized holiday stretch between Thanksgiving and Dec. 25. What I've discovered in the past few years of observing Advent is it's not just a different word; it's an entirely different approach.

Let me explain. Advent as a season is meant to make the journey toward Christmas full of meaning; it's meant to put us in touch with our deepest longings and greatest hopes; it's meant to teach us to bring all our desires together on one object: Christ. While "Christmas" as a season (properly) begins on Dec. 25 and goes 12 days (yes, there's a song about that!) until Jan. 6, Advent is all about the build-up to it. It begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas and takes us right up to the glorious celebration of the incarnation.

When you journey through Advent to Christmas, you begin to see Jesus more fully. You recognize His incarnation was the beginning of the redemption of the world and His return is the completion of it. Advent pulls those two moments together. It overlays the joy of His arrival as a helpless babe with the hope of His appearing as conquering King. Both arrivals are anticipated in celebrating Advent.

The Ministry of Communion

By Jon Walker 

It is the command of Jesus that none should come to the altar with a heart that is unreconciled to his brother. If this command of Jesus applies to every service of worship, indeed, to every prayer we utter, then it most certainly applies to reception of the Lord’s Supper. Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Perfect Love desires communion, the sharing of life together, so it cannot be expressed from a distance. God came in human form to make His love visible. God so loved the world that He came up-close in Christ. 1 John 1:1-3 (MSG)

The Big Idea: Communion is about the sharing of life. It is about knowing others and being known by others, about caring and being cared for on a deep and personal level. And, when we take Communion (the Lord’s Supper) together, we should reflect the life we share with one another because the Life of Christ is active in our hearts.

— — — —

We cannot love like Jesus loves us unless we enter each other’s lives in an intimate and personal way. And so Jesus expects us to come up-close to each other. At the Last Supper, he spoke of the deep communion we should have with him and with one another. This is when he tells us, “I am the vine, and you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will bear much fruit; for you can do nothing without me” (John 15:6 TEV).

The Lamb Who Is The Lion

by C. P. Hia

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Read: Revelation 5:1-12

At the name of Jesus every knee should bow . . . [and] every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. —Philippians 2:10-11

Bible in a Year:
Psalms 61-63

In Revelation 5, the apostle John portrays Jesus, the Lion of Judah (v.5), as a wounded Lamb (v.6). Referring to this word picture, preacher Charles Spurgeon asked, “Why should our exalted Lord appear in His wounds in glory?” His reply: “The wounds of Jesus are His glory.”

Typically, the symbol of a lamb does not represent power and victory. Most people prefer symbols of strength that invite admiration. Yet God chose to be incarnated as a baby born into a poor carpenter’s home. He lived as an itinerant preacher and died “as a lamb to the slaughter” (Isa. 53:7) on a Roman cross.