Advent

As you might know, we are in the middle of the Advent Season. I don’t know about you, but I really have never contemplated what that really means and how I should truly apply it to my life. As usual, I started with one of my favorite websites; thefreedictionary.com.

The Free Dictionary defines Advent as; the coming or arrival, especially of something extremely important; an arrival or coming, especially one which is awaited; the liturgical period preceding Christmas, beginning in Western churches on the fourth Sunday before Christmas and in Eastern churches in mid-November, and observed by many Christians as a season of prayer, fasting, and penitence.

So to me, Advent is a joyful, hopeful, expectant, forward looking spirit within believers. It is the knowledge that Christ will return and all will be right in the world, all will be restored, all will be completed. It is the expectant hope that the One who came will come again bringing peace and joy to all God’s children.

I see such a clear picture of this in Isaiah 11:6-9;

6 The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling[a] together; and a little child will lead them. 7 The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. 8 The infant will play near the cobra’s den, the young child will put its hand into the viper’s nest. 9 They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.

Oh, isn’t that worth longing for; isn’t that the hope of Christians? So this Advent season may we all begin to live joyfully, hopefully; longing for the Advent of Christ! Amen and Amen.

Grace and Peace!