The continuing Advent
Commentary
Perhaps we have succeeded in obscuring the meaning of Advent when we have tied it to one time such as the Sundays before Christmas.
If we take the word as it is it means "coming," and the truth about God is that he is always coming, always making himself known, always revealing his word for us.
There are stories of his Advent everywhere.
What about his coming to Adam and Eve in the Garden, to Cain after he has killed Abel, to Noah on whose shoulders rest the task of a new world, to Abraham who hears the call to go "not knowing where he was going." And what about his coming to Moses, Joshua, the Judges, the Kings, the Prophets? The writer of Hebrews put it well:
Long ago God spoke of our ancestors in many and vanous ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son.
Hebrews 1:1-2a
Read the Hebrew writer's list of those to whom God had come as he spins out their names in chapter 11.
And did all that cease when the New Testament was complete?
What about those early councils that battled with heresy and gave us early creeds like the Nicene Creed of 325 A.D. And what about the monastic movement or the growth of the Catholic church? And will we leave out the East-West schism of 1066 A.D. on the Reformation or the Wesleys, or Whitfields, or a Jonathan Edwards, or a Billy Sunday or a Billy Graham? Are all of these unrelated? And what about all those greats of the church whom we name from time to time which include Chrysostom and Augustine and Bede and Calvin and Zwingli? We could make another list and bring Hebrews up to date.
The truth is that Advent never ends. It continues each time the word is proclaimed and the sacraments are administered. We have his promise to be with us in these matters and because it is his word we dare not act as if Jesus left the earth in 33 A.D. and will come back someday and that in the meantime we are bereft of his presence. John was right, "the word became flesh and dwelt among us" and so was Matthew who declared him to be "Immanuel," which means, God with us.
OUTLINE I
The Prophet's Vision of the Kingdom of God
Isaiah 65:17-25
Introduction: Little wonder that revival preachers had so many good illustrations for heaven on earth and for heaven to come. The prophets, poets par excellence, brought messages of the certainty of God's word (promises) in poetry in an attempt to free them from literal pictures, in an effort to lift our vision away from earthly confines, seeking to say something about God.
Alas, we are literalists. We are condemned to time and space. We listen to poetry and hear commonplace things. We imagine pictures of heaven that are but a bit larger than life itself. What is needed is for us to listen for the messages and let the pictures tell us about God rather than using them to paint pretty scenes for our futures.
A. New heavens and a new earth. The prophet could not have viewed the universe as we view it. He could not have imagined the cosmos as we have come to know it. The universe is ever new, ever expanding, ever becoming. Any static vision of creation is done in. God is still at work and creation is still underway. Stand at the foot of a volcano in Hawaii or be aboard ship at the end of a glacier, or cross the Alps of Europe or the Rocky Mountains and see the stress and strain of continuing creation. Check the maps of the world itself and listen to scientists speak of tectonic plates and know that the world is still being fashioned by forces beyond our wildest imaginings. The person of faith knows that God still works.
B. The new Jerusalem. Listen to the words and hear the messages about joy, long life, fruitful land, whole and healthy life, peace among all beings. That is the kingdom of God whether here on earth or in some other place.
The new heaven and the new earth and the new Jerusalem are symbols of the work of God in our midst. He is always bringing about the new, offering new beginnings, and opening new possibilities.
Conclusion: Try to train your people to stop listening as literalists and to listen with the poet's ear.
OUTLINE II
The Model Christian
1 Thessalonians 5:16-24
Introduction: It is always a bit difficult to deal with a selection when it is carved out of a paragraph, so it is important that you begin by reading at least from 5:12 and perhaps even better, read the entire book for background. In any case the word given to the Thessalonians is a word that is worthy for any congregation. It appears that Paul now admits that the return of the Lord will not happen in his lifetime but that admission does not in the least diminish his concern for watchfulness and preparedness. We are the people who live in the meantime, we are those, Paul says, who belong to the day. Living then in the light of the day we ought to be a certain kind of people.
A. Verse 16. Rejoice always. There is no place for a long faced and downcast disciple of Christ. Those who know that God is in control of life and time and eternity can only rejoice.
B. Verse 17: Pray without ceasing. Live life in the presence of God. Here Paul does not give details about what to pray for or about so I think he means that we can bring what we will into the presence of God for sharing and examination.
C. Verse 18. Give thanks. How many of us go through life from day to day taking life itself and all its gifts for granted. Or, worse, we imagine we have done it all for ourselves. Only in the presence of God do all things come into proper focus.
D. Do not quench the Spirit. Note the capital "S". Don't hold God at bay. Don't close your life to his word. Remember, the word enthusiasm comes from the Greek "en theos" meaning God in you.
E. Do not despise the word of prophets. Listen! God can speak even through broken vessels.
F. Test everything. Why not? Only then can we know what is good and what is evil. The writer of Hebrews says much the same thing in Hebrews 5: 14 in which he says that we are mature when our faculties are trained by practice to distinguish good from evil.
Conclusion: Not a bad summary of what church members ought to be concerned about even yet. Share it with them.
OUTLINE III
John Verses Jesus
John 1:6-8, 19-28
Introduction: It seems clear to me that since such a clear attempt is made to put John in his place in John 1 that we must condude that there was some serious attempt in the second century church to identify John as the Messiah. In fact, there is still a John sect alive in the middle east giving some support to this contention. Here we discover John being put in his place, having his role defined once and for all, and informing those then and now who might claim him as Messiah that the title is not his.
A. Verse 6-8. Who can deny that here the writer does not wish to denigrate John but does wish to make it clear that he comes as the promised forerunner of the Messiah? It is John who testifies to what is stated in verse 1-5, that the Word, the life, comprise the light that shines in the darkness of life and that that Word and that life and that light come from God in Christ.
B. Verse 18-19. Here John is a witness to what the writer wishes to establish. John is not the Messiah, nor the returned Elijah as some thought, or a prophet. He is a witness come to bear the message that all are to be on the lookout for the one who is to come. The writer leaves no doubt about this matter and in fact continues it in verses 35-42 in which he identifies Jesus as the Lamb of God. Surely by now that term "Lamb of God," had made its way from Revelation in to the vocabulary of the early church.
Conclusion: I doubt that there are many in the church today who worry about John replacing Jesus but this chapter does provide some interesting insight into a problem with which the church of the early second century was wrestling and it affords the writer the opportunity to say things about the Messiah that he wants to say. Here he is identified as the Logos (Greeks would understand that easier than Messiah), and yet human, the word becomes flesh so that we could all come to comprehend the heart of God in his life, teachings, death and resurrection, etc. etc.
If we take the word as it is it means "coming," and the truth about God is that he is always coming, always making himself known, always revealing his word for us.
There are stories of his Advent everywhere.
What about his coming to Adam and Eve in the Garden, to Cain after he has killed Abel, to Noah on whose shoulders rest the task of a new world, to Abraham who hears the call to go "not knowing where he was going." And what about his coming to Moses, Joshua, the Judges, the Kings, the Prophets? The writer of Hebrews put it well:
Long ago God spoke of our ancestors in many and vanous ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son.
Hebrews 1:1-2a
Read the Hebrew writer's list of those to whom God had come as he spins out their names in chapter 11.
And did all that cease when the New Testament was complete?
What about those early councils that battled with heresy and gave us early creeds like the Nicene Creed of 325 A.D. And what about the monastic movement or the growth of the Catholic church? And will we leave out the East-West schism of 1066 A.D. on the Reformation or the Wesleys, or Whitfields, or a Jonathan Edwards, or a Billy Sunday or a Billy Graham? Are all of these unrelated? And what about all those greats of the church whom we name from time to time which include Chrysostom and Augustine and Bede and Calvin and Zwingli? We could make another list and bring Hebrews up to date.
The truth is that Advent never ends. It continues each time the word is proclaimed and the sacraments are administered. We have his promise to be with us in these matters and because it is his word we dare not act as if Jesus left the earth in 33 A.D. and will come back someday and that in the meantime we are bereft of his presence. John was right, "the word became flesh and dwelt among us" and so was Matthew who declared him to be "Immanuel," which means, God with us.
OUTLINE I
The Prophet's Vision of the Kingdom of God
Isaiah 65:17-25
Introduction: Little wonder that revival preachers had so many good illustrations for heaven on earth and for heaven to come. The prophets, poets par excellence, brought messages of the certainty of God's word (promises) in poetry in an attempt to free them from literal pictures, in an effort to lift our vision away from earthly confines, seeking to say something about God.
Alas, we are literalists. We are condemned to time and space. We listen to poetry and hear commonplace things. We imagine pictures of heaven that are but a bit larger than life itself. What is needed is for us to listen for the messages and let the pictures tell us about God rather than using them to paint pretty scenes for our futures.
A. New heavens and a new earth. The prophet could not have viewed the universe as we view it. He could not have imagined the cosmos as we have come to know it. The universe is ever new, ever expanding, ever becoming. Any static vision of creation is done in. God is still at work and creation is still underway. Stand at the foot of a volcano in Hawaii or be aboard ship at the end of a glacier, or cross the Alps of Europe or the Rocky Mountains and see the stress and strain of continuing creation. Check the maps of the world itself and listen to scientists speak of tectonic plates and know that the world is still being fashioned by forces beyond our wildest imaginings. The person of faith knows that God still works.
B. The new Jerusalem. Listen to the words and hear the messages about joy, long life, fruitful land, whole and healthy life, peace among all beings. That is the kingdom of God whether here on earth or in some other place.
The new heaven and the new earth and the new Jerusalem are symbols of the work of God in our midst. He is always bringing about the new, offering new beginnings, and opening new possibilities.
Conclusion: Try to train your people to stop listening as literalists and to listen with the poet's ear.
OUTLINE II
The Model Christian
1 Thessalonians 5:16-24
Introduction: It is always a bit difficult to deal with a selection when it is carved out of a paragraph, so it is important that you begin by reading at least from 5:12 and perhaps even better, read the entire book for background. In any case the word given to the Thessalonians is a word that is worthy for any congregation. It appears that Paul now admits that the return of the Lord will not happen in his lifetime but that admission does not in the least diminish his concern for watchfulness and preparedness. We are the people who live in the meantime, we are those, Paul says, who belong to the day. Living then in the light of the day we ought to be a certain kind of people.
A. Verse 16. Rejoice always. There is no place for a long faced and downcast disciple of Christ. Those who know that God is in control of life and time and eternity can only rejoice.
B. Verse 17: Pray without ceasing. Live life in the presence of God. Here Paul does not give details about what to pray for or about so I think he means that we can bring what we will into the presence of God for sharing and examination.
C. Verse 18. Give thanks. How many of us go through life from day to day taking life itself and all its gifts for granted. Or, worse, we imagine we have done it all for ourselves. Only in the presence of God do all things come into proper focus.
D. Do not quench the Spirit. Note the capital "S". Don't hold God at bay. Don't close your life to his word. Remember, the word enthusiasm comes from the Greek "en theos" meaning God in you.
E. Do not despise the word of prophets. Listen! God can speak even through broken vessels.
F. Test everything. Why not? Only then can we know what is good and what is evil. The writer of Hebrews says much the same thing in Hebrews 5: 14 in which he says that we are mature when our faculties are trained by practice to distinguish good from evil.
Conclusion: Not a bad summary of what church members ought to be concerned about even yet. Share it with them.
OUTLINE III
John Verses Jesus
John 1:6-8, 19-28
Introduction: It seems clear to me that since such a clear attempt is made to put John in his place in John 1 that we must condude that there was some serious attempt in the second century church to identify John as the Messiah. In fact, there is still a John sect alive in the middle east giving some support to this contention. Here we discover John being put in his place, having his role defined once and for all, and informing those then and now who might claim him as Messiah that the title is not his.
A. Verse 6-8. Who can deny that here the writer does not wish to denigrate John but does wish to make it clear that he comes as the promised forerunner of the Messiah? It is John who testifies to what is stated in verse 1-5, that the Word, the life, comprise the light that shines in the darkness of life and that that Word and that life and that light come from God in Christ.
B. Verse 18-19. Here John is a witness to what the writer wishes to establish. John is not the Messiah, nor the returned Elijah as some thought, or a prophet. He is a witness come to bear the message that all are to be on the lookout for the one who is to come. The writer leaves no doubt about this matter and in fact continues it in verses 35-42 in which he identifies Jesus as the Lamb of God. Surely by now that term "Lamb of God," had made its way from Revelation in to the vocabulary of the early church.
Conclusion: I doubt that there are many in the church today who worry about John replacing Jesus but this chapter does provide some interesting insight into a problem with which the church of the early second century was wrestling and it affords the writer the opportunity to say things about the Messiah that he wants to say. Here he is identified as the Logos (Greeks would understand that easier than Messiah), and yet human, the word becomes flesh so that we could all come to comprehend the heart of God in his life, teachings, death and resurrection, etc. etc.
