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The Hope and Darkness of Advent

Bonnie Kristian

Paris Orlando/Wikimedia Commons
December 8, 2019



Christmas is coming, but it is not yet.

Commercially, of course, this year's Christmas season is already long in the tooth. But if you are a Christian in a tradition which keeps the full Western liturgical calendar (and not all traditions do), it has yet to begin. Advent is the four Sundays before Christmas Day, the season of preparation for Christmas, for re-enacting the anticipation of God's rescue of humanity that starts with the birth of Jesus. It is a time of expectation rather than fulfillment, of longing rather than joy. It is the season for waiting.

Coming to this as we do, two millennia after the fact, it is difficult — for me, anyway — to feel this wait as real. I can't pretend I don't know the end of the story. I've heard its spoilers my whole life. And I am not by nature sentimental: The Christmas tree in our home is a concession to my marriage, not something I'd bother with on my own. (Among my earliest memories is when, at 3, I took my mother up on her threat to cancel Christmas if I continued to refuse to dress for the Christmas Eve service — and considered it a fair bargain.) But while I struggle to share in the Advent wait for Christ's first coming, I have no such difficulty participating in its dual anticipation of his return. And the yearning that entails is a yearning I think we all share, whether or not you're a Christian in an Advent tradition, or even a Christian at all.


It is, most basically, a yearning for justice. I don't mean the unsatisfactory justice we habitually encounter, the justice of courts and cops and prison. I don't mean anything so empty as retribution, which as the subject of yearning nearly always takes the uglier form of revenge.

The justice Christians hope for in the return of Jesus is far more than that. It is no sterile terror, no cruel machine that gnaws the innocent and guilty alike. It is the sense — more than that, the reality — that all is as it should be. It is as small as a perfect dinner with loved ones and as grand as the greatest wrongs of history coming under divine judgment, their victims finally, fully made whole. It is God dwelling among his people on a renewed Earth, where "there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." It is the redemption of everything, not only humanity, as "creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God."

It is an end to war and terrorism and abuse, yes, but also to the suffering of animals and the disfigurement of our planet. It is the realization of our hope that darkness will be broken by light, that death, evil, and oppression will not have the final word.

It may be tempting, when reading this, to say, "Well, that's all very nice, and naturally I would like that too, but that's not the real world. It's just a fairy tale for adults, or perhaps a falsely pious excuse to avoid the work of justice now, to imagine a future when God fixes it all for us so we are not responsible for fixing it ourselves." And that reaction would be very understandable, because too often Christians have used our expectation of Jesus returning in exactly that manner. There are even distorted theologies which explicitly make this move, condoning callousness about poverty because, in this age, "the poor you will always have with you" or dismissing concern over environmental destruction because "the Earth is going to be all burned up anyway. It's in the Bible."


But it's not, not like that, anyway. What the Bible describes, albeit in poetic, apocalyptic language very difficult for us to read in a culture which has lost the genre of apocalypse, is not "the abandonment of the present world, but rather its fulfillment," as N.T. Wright, a New Testament scholar who is among the most important living Christian theologians, has explained. "You don't liberate something by destroying it," Wright continues. "All the beauty, all the goodness, all the pulsating life of the present creation, is to be enhanced, lifted to a new level, in the world that is to be. ... [So] there is a strong incentive to work, in the present, to anticipate the new world in every possible way."

The occupation of those who live in this hope of justice is not to muck things up so God has more to make right. It is to work with God toward that good end, to act now, insofar as it is possible, as the sort of people we will be then. And I'd submit the appeal of this narrative is not an item of evidence for its falsehood: If the hope Advent offers is real, we would quite expect to find a longing for it in every human heart.

Advent, then, is a season of hope and darkness. It is a season which looks unflinchingly at the evil that now besets us and stubbornly insists its days are numbered. And then the joy of Christmas comes, bringing with it a gaiety which, T.S. Eliot tells us, must "not be forgotten in later experience/In the bored habituation, the fatigue, the tedium/The awareness of death, the consciousness of failure," so that our "accumulated memories of annual emotion/May be concentrated into a great joy/Which shall be also a great fear, as on the occasion/When fear came upon every soul:/Because the beginning shall remind us of the end/And the first coming of the second coming."

Christmas is coming, but it is not yet. Advent bids us wait, declaring justice is not yet either, but it will just as surely come.

Packed and Ready?

Billy Graham, Sept 1969

Purpose in Anticipation

(excerpt from Josh Buish article) 

Do you often consider the simple conversations that you have on a daily basis? What about that person that you talked with on the subway this week? What about the Uber driver that you talked with last week? What about the person in the coffee shop who talked with you as you waited on your Frappuccino to be served? The God who rules the Universe also directs the steps of us all—and there is no “chance” conversation that we have in a single day.

If we anticipate the return of Jesus—it will change how we look at such conversations, friendships, family connections, and work relationships. We will look at people through an eschatological lens and our conversations will suddenly have a much deeper purpose. We should not look at people as “projects” or opportunities for notches in our evangelistic belts, but a proper anticipation of Jesus’ return will cause us to engage in disciple-making at a much deeper level.

Furthermore, as we anticipate the return of Christ it will often redirect our priorities to be less self-focused and more Kingdom-focused. Why would we pile up resources to use for our own pleasure and temporal joys when the world needs to know the true joy of Jesus Christ? Longing for the return of Christ doesn’t make you hate taking vacations, but it will certainly prevent you from wasting your resources without any care for the lost world that is perishing around you.

We live in-between the already and the not-yet reality of the rule of Jesus. While Jesus has defeated death and paid for the sins of all of his people, we still live in the world of brokenness and sin. Such reality is heavy and burdensome at times. But, we live with hope of a Christian that Jesus rules today from heaven’s throne and that he will one day return in visible victory for the whole world to see. When Christ returns—all things will be made new.

WAKE UP, CHURCH: JESUS IS COMING!

David Wilkerson

When I was a boy the cry of the church was, “Jesus is coming!” All through my teenage years, every evangelist who came to preach in my father’s church had a stirring message about the soon return of Christ. Even today their sermons remain burned in my memory: “The Bible says Christ will come like a thief in the night, when you least expect him. It will happen in the twinkling of an eye, with the sound of a trumpet. You must be ready at all times.”

The powerful cry, “Jesus is coming!” is seldom heard in God’s house today. Very few Christians live with a sense of expectancy, looking and yearning for Jesus’ return. How has this happened?

The New Testament gives many warnings that mockers will appear in the last days, ridiculing the doctrine of Christ’s coming. Peter writes, “There shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation” (2 Peter 3:3-4). This mocking can be heard today: “What does anyone have to fear? All things continue just as they always have. There is no reason to fear a Judgment Day, because it simply isn’t coming.”

After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, people flocked to churches and prayed with a fervor that hasn’t been seen in recent times. Yet, just six months later, fewer people were attending church than before the 9/11 attacks. Just as Peter prophesied, the mockers have arrived.

The devil has whispered a different lie into the ears of many believers. That lie is, “Christ has delayed his coming.” Jesus addresses this in Matthew 24 in his parable about being ready for his return: “Be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.

Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing. Verily I say unto you, That he shall make him ruler over all his goods.

“But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; and shall begin to smite his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the drunken; the lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, and shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 24:45-51).

Jesus is speaking here about believers, identifying them as servants. One of these servants is faithful while the other is evil. What makes the second servant evil in the Lord’s eyes? According to Jesus, it is something “he shall say in his heart” — that “the Lord delays his coming.” In other words, he’s convinced Jesus won’t come suddenly or unexpectedly. He has been instructed to “watch,” to “be ready,” “for the Son of man cometh at an hour when ye think not” (Luke 12:40). But instead this servant eases his conscience by believing Satan’s lie.

Once he accepts the devil’s lie, here is the fruit: Because he sees no need to watch for Christ’s coming, he doesn’t see any need to make peace with his fellow servants. There is no need to preserve unity at home, at work, in the church, no need to make things right with others. Instead, he feels he could “smite his fellow servants,” accusing them, holding grudges and destroying others’ reputations. This servant seeks only to play, to have pleasure, to live with no conscience. In short, he wants both Jesus and the world.

Paul constantly cried, “Wake up! It is past midnight, and the Lord’s coming has drawn near. Stir yourself and don’t be slothful. Jesus is coming for those who are expecting him.” He wrote to the church in Rome: “Knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light” (Romans 13:11-12). He also wrote to the church in Philippi: “Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand” (Philippians 4:5).

This brings me to the heart of my message: the heart-cry of the one in Christ.

In Revelation 22:17, we read, “The Spirit and the bride say, Come.” The bride of Christ consists of a worldwide body of believers who are under the lordship of Jesus. These are born-again, blood-cleansed believers.

This verse shows us the very last cry, or prayer, of the Holy Spirit, when he knows his work on earth is about to be completed: “Come, Lord Jesus!” This cry of the Spirit is not directed to men but to Christ. It means, in essence, “Lord, hasten your coming.”

All who make up the body of Christ know this cry of the Spirit. They live and walk in the Spirit, with their souls seated in heavenly places, and their bodies are his temple. The Spirit himself prays within them, “Come, hasten, Lord Jesus,” and so this becomes their heart-cry also. In verse 7 of this chapter, Jesus announces, “Behold, I come quickly: blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophesy of this book.” Verse 12 adds, “Behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.” If I believe the world is racing toward unrestrained chaos, and that Christ is coming, then this must be my cry to my family and friends who are unprepared. My prayer must be, “Come, Lord. But first, give my unprepared loved ones ears to hear. Save them, Jesus.”

Have you made this your cry for your loved ones? May they no longer believe mockers who say, “All things are continuing in good order. Enjoy yourself, indulge, do whatever makes you happy.” May all such blindness be removed! Terrorists have blown up New York’s twin towers. Rogue nations with nuclear bombs are preparing to hold the world hostage. New diseases never before known to humankind, such as SARS and ebola, can destroy bodies within a week. Some 700,000 innocent Rwandans died at the hands of their own countrymen. The list goes on and on.

All things continue as they have? What willful ignorance! The truth is that God is shaking all that can be shaken. And what is still to come is too dreadful to think about.

The Holy Spirit knows what is soon to take place, when there is no longer any restraint.

When that time comes, every man will give himself over to his lusts. Every militant religion will force its gods on others. And every holy thing will be despised, with every law broken. Meanwhile, the backslidden church will preach the most corrupt, damnable doctrines of hell.

In the midst of all this, I hear Jesus saying, “Surely I come quickly” (Revelation 22:20). I also hear the bride of Christ answering, as John did, “Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus” (same verse).

I urge you: For a moment try to set aside all thoughts of differing doctrines about Christ’s coming. Instead, listen to the heart-cry of the man and woman who love the thought of our Lord’s appearing. This cry is at the heart of the entire matter: “We shall see him face to face. We shall behold him” (see 1 Corinthians 13:12).

Jesus’ coming ought to thrill your heart. It ought never to disturb you. Can you imagine what it will be like when he calls you by name? If you truly love someone, you want that person to be near you.

Imagine a newlywed couple, with the husband quickly called away, perhaps into the military or on business. He tells his wife, “I’m coming back but I don’t know when.” For the first few years the wife writes him often with beautiful love letters. But she never says in them, “Come back soon.” Years pass and she writes him less and less, still never saying, “Come quickly, I beseech you. I pray for your soon return.”

Beloved, how can we tell Christ we love him and miss him yet never pray he comes back for us? How can we never express to him our cry that he must come back and take us with him so we can be in his constant company?

May this be our cry continually: “Come quickly, Lord Jesus!”

The Return of Jesus

2 Peter 3:12, ESV: "waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn!"

Christians know what day of God means - called "the day of God," because God will then be manifested in his power and glory. Jesus will return to claim what is rightfully his and the end will come.

Yet how many Christians know what .... waiting for and hastening the coming  really means. I think I often skipped over those words as I was so taken aback by the heavens will be set on fire, etc. It's easy to gloss over some parts of scripture when other parts are so vivid.

The Greek word rendered "hasting," (σπεύδω speudō,) means to urge on, to hasten; and then to hasten after anything, to await with eager desire. We know we are to be excited and eager for our Lord to return. But are we? Really? How often do you actually think about it?  Or anticipate it?

Which brings me to the hastening part. I know we cannot hasten Christ's return - or can we? 

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary
hasting unto—with the utmost eagerness desiring, praying for, and contemplating, the coming Saviour as at hand. The Greek may mean "hastening (that is, urging onward) the day of God"; not that God's eternal appointment of the time is changeable, but God appoints us as instruments of accomplishing those events which must be first before the day of God can come. By praying for His coming, furthering the preaching of the Gospel for a witness to all nations, and bringing in those whom "the long-suffering of God" waits to save, we hasten the coming of the day of God. The Greek verb is always in New Testament used as neuter (as English Version here), not active; but the Septuagint uses it actively. Christ says, "Surely I come quickly. Amen." Our part is to speed forward this consummation by praying, "Even so, come, Lord Jesus" (Re 22:20).

There are differing mindsets concerning these words - among many great theologians - so I certainly don't have the answer. But I do know we are told many times in God's Word to pray for the return of Christ. Jesus taught us to pray "Thy Kingdom come" in what we call the Lord's prayer (Matthew 6:10). Psalm 122:6 says "pray for the peace of Jerusalem" to which we know will only happen when the Lord returns - so we are praying for his return when we pray for the peace of Jerusalem. And at the end of Revelation, John closes with "Even so, come Lord Jesus (Rev 22:20).

Peter in Acts 3:19-20 says........... Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord, and that he may send the Messiah, who has been appointed for you - even Jesus.

While I don't think it's clear whether or not we can actually affect when Christ returns, I do know we are commanded to do the following:

*To believe in Jesus as the Son of God and love one another (1 John 3:23)

*To go and make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:19-20) and .........

*To pray for the return of Jesus

What I don't understand is why we are not praying for His return every week in our churches? We should be praying corporately and individually for His return. We should be EXCITED about His return. We should be using His return to encourage each other and give the body hope.

After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.Therefore encourage one another with these words. 1 Thess 4:17-18

Jesus IS coming back for His bride - the Church. We live our lives as if it's never going to happen when the truth is it could happen at any moment. Early Christians used to greet one another with "Perhaps today!" They were anticipating His return, they were excited about it and they used that phrase to encourage one another. My prayer is that this generation of Christians would begin to feel the excitement and start praying daily for the return of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!!

Perhaps today,
Lisa

5 SIGNS YOU MIGHT SEE CHRIST

by David Jeremiah

Sitting like giant golf balls on the bleak Yorkshire moors of northern England are dozens of strange globes protected by sophisticated security fences. Known as Project Echelon, this is one of the world’s most secret intelligence operations. It’s located at Menwith Hill, a Royal Air Force station eight miles from the English town of Harrogate, and it is the largest electronic monitoring station in the world. Within its 560 acres is an extensive network of spherical domes, satellite dishes, radio masts, computer centers, and processing stations. 

During the Cold War, Menwith Hill intercepted Communist messages, and it broke codes from the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc nations. Now it’s thought that this RAF base is capable of the world’s most advanced global electronic surveillance, including the interception and content inspection of telephone calls, faxes, e-mails, and broadcasting signals. Project Echelon is the key link in a worldwide eavesdropping network operated by America’s National Security Agency, and it is linked to the spy agencies of several other nations.

 Advocates claim that Echelon will help the West win the war against terrorism. Critics warn that it represents a dangerous invasion of privacy and a grave threat to personal liberties. Some alarmists claim that Echelon has the power to potentially monitor the conversations of everyone anywhere on earth at any time. That may be far fetched, but only a few super-secret souls know the true reach of Echelon, and even fewer know what new technologies are just within the reach of specialists. 

While Echelon may serve a vital role in our national security, think of this tool as one day being in the hands of the Antichrist. Think of Echelon in terms of Eschatology (the biblical study of the End Times). 

And think of this. Project Echelon can never—regardless of technological advances—eavesdrop on the secret counsels of the Trinity. It can never penetrate God’s mind. But the Lord has already revealed to us vital secrets about the future, and He has declassified and released important data about great events soon to engulf the world. We have a source of secret intelligence that no spy agency on earth can duplicate.

Dr. J. Dwight Pentecost wrote in his book, Things to Come: “God, the architect of the ages, has seen fit to take us into His confidence concerning His plan for the future, and has revealed His purpose and program in detail in the Word. A greater body of Scripture is given to prophecy than any other one subject, for approximately one-fourth of the Bible was prophetic at the time it was written.” 

When we study biblical prophecy, we’re investigating the case of current events with secret intelligence provided by the God of time and eternity. 

“24” 

Some of that data is contained in our Lord’s sermon in Matthew 24. In the final week of His life, prior to His crucifixion and resurrection, Jesus left the complex of buildings on Temple Mount, hiked down the Kidron Valley and onto the slopes of the Mount of Olives. As they paused to rest on Olivet, the disciples looked back and the view was stunning—the sun setting on the temple. Jesus used the occasion to preach His premier message relating to His return, and in Matthew 24, He gave several signposts to watch for. 

• False Prophets (verses 4-5): Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, “I am the Messiah,” and will deceive many (NIV). Perhaps you’ve heard terrible statistics regarding the number of sites on the internet devoted to pornography. But did you know that according to a report some time ago on CNN, there are more sites devoted to religion than to porn? With the click of a mouse, you can suddenly summon up any one of thousands of sects and cults and religions with millions upon millions of electronic pages devoted to an ever growing number of false Christs. Never in human history has there been such proliferation of religious information.

• Wars and rumors of War (verse 6). Just since the year 2000, large portions of the world have been devastated by conflict. America sustained more than 3,000 causalities in the attacks of September 11, 2001. The 2003 War in Darfur has caused nearly 5 a half-million deaths. The death toll in Iraq amounts to many thousands. Over 7,000 died in the 2006 war in Somalia. Over 22,000 have perished in the War in Afghanistan. There are ongoing conflicts and insurgencies right now in a host of other nations. As you read these words, someone’s home is being shattered by wars and rumors of war. 

• Famines and earthquakes (verse 7). If you’ve been listening to the news recently, you’ve heard reports of food shortages in various parts of the world. The price of food is rising, and severe famines are forecast, especially for parts of Africa and portions of Asia. Regarding earthquakes, I find it fascinating that there are internet sites devoted to monitoring and reporting on the occurrences of earthquakes on an hour-by-hour basis. For example, one website has a map detailing 208 earthquakes that rattled different parts of the globe over the course of seven days. 

• Persecution (verse 9). As false religions, wars, famines, and earthquakes increase, so does the violence of persecution. “Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death,” said Jesus, “and you will be hated by all nations because of me.” It’s a marvel to me that the news media can spend days talking about the latest celebrity outrage while ignoring the plight of 600 million Christians now suffering persecution and various forms of harassment because of their faith. Advocacy groups estimate that the twentieth century saw more Christians die (about 45 million) just for being believers than in the first 19 centuries (25 billion) after the birth of Christ. And there’s every reason to believe the twenty-first century will be just as bad or worse. There is nonstop persecution against Christians in many countries in the world. One expert, Nina Shea, wrote, “Millions of American Christians pray in their churches each week, oblivious to the fact that Christians in many parts of the world suffer brutal torture, arrest, imprisonment, and even death—their homes and communities laid waste—for no other reason than they are Christians.” 

• The Spread of the Gospel (verse 14). Nevertheless, Jesus indicated that the spread of the Gospel would accelerate. According to missionary experts, 74.5 percent of the world was unevangelized in the year 1800. That percentage had reduced to 54.3 by the year 1900. There was an explosion of evangelism in the twentieth century, and by the year 2000, only 28.3 percent of the world remained unreached. 

As He continued His discourse on the Mount of Olives, Jesus went on to say that other great and perilous events would take place—the Abomination of Desolation described by Daniel the prophet (verse 15), the Great Tribulation (verse 21), and the coming of the Son of Man (verse 27). 

THE END TIMES 

Other passages—especially in Daniel, Zechariah, 1 Thessalonians, and the book of Revelation—add vivid and fascinating layers of information about the End Times, and taken together present a reasonably clear outline of the last days. The purpose of biblical prophecy, after all, isn’t to confuse us but to inform and motivate us. In the process, it does even more. It reminds us that God was present at the beginning of history, He is superintending the progress of human history, and He Himself will be the great consummation of history. 

The God of Scripture is eternal and omniscient. He encircles time and space, and He knows the future as fully as the past. He possesses absolute and ultimate power, and He has written the script of the ages. That script is called Scripture, and studying biblical prophecy is nothing less than an investigation into God’s plan for the future. 

It appears to me that we could well be living in the last days. Alarming as this is, it has always been part of God’s plan, and there’s great comfort in knowing that His program is right on schedule. I’m excited about the future because I’m excited about Christ. In Him, we’re safe and secure from all alarm. We’re hidden in the cleft of the Rock. We’re engraved on the palm of His hand. 

And His hand is at the helm of history