Ready or Not….
Dec 1st, 2009 by timmccalmont
Someone, was it Bob Dylan (?) and many others I am sure, who wrote time flows on like a rolling river to the sea. And here we are another year in the books and Thanksgiving (and Black Friday) is behind us, and dead ahead is the path to Christmas, or as we call it Advent. Advent is from the Latin and it simply means “coming.” Something important is coming, a noun in ancient times used to describe the impending visit of royalty, or even the king! For the Christian world, it is used to describe the four weeks in advance of Christmas and the celebration of coming of the Messiah, his first incarnation and his second, which is yet to take place.
I remember when I was a kid, growing up in Hollywood, the President came to town. His name was Dwight Eisenhower, theGeneral and everyone liked to call him “Ike.” He was planning to speak in the Hollywood Bowl and his route was to take him right through our neighborhood and past the church where we worshiped. The city got all laced up and people went out and bought American flags and stood along the
Presidential Bubbletop
planned route. This was before the threat of assasination was such a big deal and so we all know what streets he was planning to travel to the Bowl, so there we were and …….there he went, in an instant. All I saw was his bubbletop car and his shiny head, with a waving hand. But I saw him, yes I did!
The coming of the King is a much bigger deal obviously, and we are encouraged to be ready. True that Christ has already come, that which we celebrate this time each year. But he has promised to return, a second appearing, and we must be ready. This advent we make ready our lives and our homes, our churches and our relationships, to celebrate Advent, the coming of the King. This means he comes not just to dash past in a bubbletop limo, but to really come to live, to “tabernacle” with us, to set up his residence with us. How good is that?!!
Whatever uncertainties you face this Advent season remember that we are in an Advent mode. Christ has come, God with us, and that means he remains with us in a dynamic, impacting presence. He faces the future with us, promising never to leave us nor forsake us (Deut. 31:6), Jesus himself vowing to his disciples that he would be with us “to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). And he promises to come again in glory (Matt. 24:30). In the meantime (and the times are mean, aren’t they?) we are told to be ready, to make ourselves ready for his appearing (I Peter 1:13). We are told to ready our minds and live into the hope that is given to us by such an awesome God. the way we live and spend our time and our money, as well as the way we worship makes us ready for the Advent.
The word for advent issues in a very descriptive word in English, “adventure.” May Advent 2009, be a hopeful experience, indeed an adventure for us all in the midst of uncertain, even daunting times, as we look forward to what our God has just ahead!