Advent: Hope of His Coming!
“But
do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one
day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is like a day.” 2 Peter 3:8
“Behold,
I am coming quickly, and my reward is with Me, to render to every man according
to what he has done.” Rev. 22:12
When
we celebrate Advent, we are focusing our preparation for the celebration of
Christ coming to earth. It’s a time of expectation
of the coming of Christmas. With expectation
there are five different aspects of Christ’s Advent, hope, peace, joy,
love, and most important Christ, which we focus on. This Sunday was the first Sunday of Advent the
focus is on hope. Hope means to place
trust, rely. This definition is an old
meaning long forgotten but is true of the faith. We like then, need to trust and rely on Gods
word that just like the first coming of Christ the second coming will be in the same literal way. This Advent season I
think we need to take the principles of the first Advent and apply it to the
second coming of Jesus Christ.
The
book of Malachi, last book of the Old Testament, tells us a lot about the
people during the time between the testaments.
The book was written 400 years before the time of Christ. He talks about the sins of the people of God,
their spiritual leaders and to the sins in families. When you read it, one can’t but feel how some
of this has crept back into the churches today.
The message in the book is harsh and yet it was needed then, and we need
it now, but we do our best at times to ignore it. Within the 400-year period between the
testaments the message was ignored and it only got worse. By the time Christ did come the religion was
not as much based on faith as on works and who you were. Christ during his ministry would butt heads many
times with religious leaders and it would one day “cost Him His life.” Christ would then be raised to life again.
There
was great hope by the time of Christ that someday He would come. The people didn’t like Roman control nor did they like any leaders that were placed over them. People were looking forward
with great hope for the Messiah, Jesus Christ, to come. Though many would someday reject Him,
because of false understandings, they wanted a Savior. When the Magi came in Matthew 2, the scribes even
knew where the Messiah was to be born and understood many of the details about
Him. It is worth noting that even though
the Magi pointed out the Messiah was born, the scribes didn’t go with them to find Him.
Jesus
came at just the right time as Gal 4:4 says “When the fullness of the time came,
God sent forth His Son…” When Christ
second coming happens, it to will happen at just the right time. Jesus tells us in several places like Rev.
22:12 that He is “coming quickly.” How
long is quickly? Well 2 Peter 3:8 says “a
day is like a thousand years.” If someone
says they are coming quickly they usually are not talking about years but
days. So, I am left to believe the same
with Christ and, so I have to say it could be any day any time. That leads to yet another question: Are you ready? Few were truly ready the first time He came
and, yet they were told He was coming.
We too are told He is coming. Will we be ready? Don’t be like the scribes
and religious leaders and not recognize what is happening though you know the
truth.
This
Advent Christmas season let us fix our hope on the fact that Christ will be
coming back! The best gift we could ever
give Jesus is our lives committed to loving Him with our everything, and to
look forward to His second coming. It
may not happen in our lifetime, but it could. Remember its been 2000 years so
that is like 2 days to Him.
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