Each week during the month of DecemberI will align these blogs with the Advent theme for the week. If you are not familiar with the season of Advent, it is the four weeks preceding Christmas. It is a season of preparation as we turn our minds and hearts to the upcoming holiday.
I grew up with daily family Advent devotions around an Advent wreath with four candles. Every Sunday another candle was lit. Each candle—each week—represented something.
Today, I dove into my now deceased father’s file of sermons that I have inherited. I opened the file marked “Advent.” Tears came to my eyes as I heard his voice preaching and remembered my dad’s love of the Gospel and the power available to Jesus Followers. I also discovered something new.
I have known that each of the weeks in Advent are assigned a theme. The theme for this week is hope. What I learned today was that the candles were, at one time at least, each given a name. The name of the candle for this week is the Prophet’s candle. How, I mused, is hope connected to the prophets?
We so often think of the Old Testament prophets as the voice of God correcting His people. It is true there is correction throughout the Old Testament. However, I would suggest that the role of the Old Testament prophet was to correct the people IN ORDER TO draw them back to their Creator, Father, their Lord and King. The prophets offered hope as they drew people back to the Lord and prophesied of the birth of Jesus—our source of hope.
Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.Isaiah 7:14
I have thought a lot about Immanuel, God with us, as I have pondered this newsletter. What does it mean that Jesus is with you? How does it change your life? How does it affect your words and actions?
In a message my father wrote based on a prayer that began, “Stir up our hearts, oh Lord, to prepare the way for Your Only Son” he wrote, “Isn’t Christian faith all about God’s stirring our hearts? It’s about the stirring up that God does for His people, enabling us to face the conflicts and the darkness in the confidence that He has a way to handle them with us, and to handle them for us.”
That, My Friends, is Immanuel, God with us.
God is the source of your hope, not your situation and circumstances.
Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy. 1 Timothy 6:17
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:`14
Whatever you face today, this week, or this holiday season, your hope lies in The Word who became flesh. Your hope lies in the fact that Jesus is your Immanuel, your God who is with you through it all.
May Holy Spirit stir you heart to reach for the hand of the One who walks with you and enables you to face “the conflicts and the darkness in the confidence that He has a way to handle them with you and for you.”
O Come, O Come Immanuel
Praise be to God!