Revelation, Covenants, and Advent

Technically we should start a series of Advent sermons today, the fourth Sunday before Christmas. Thankfully, there’s no law, let alone Bible verse, that requires it, so we can be flexible. Since I was gone last week and still have one more message in the TEC as Teen series, we’ll have one less advent sermon this year. But let’s talk about it here.

Advent means “coming.” Advent season is a time of scheduled waiting. Even more, we plan events that prod us to anticipate the arrival. We know something is supposed to happen, more specially, we know someone will show up. We want it to happen, we look for it. These four weeks until Christmas are real days of not yet, but soon and very soon. Christmas Day, when we celebrate the birth of Jesus, is not a question of if but when. We have this one printed on our yearly calendars.

Advent only works because of revelation. The magi left on their journey to Bethlehem because they saw a star, but they knew what the star meant because they had heard the prophecies about the birth of the King of the Jews.

God said what was coming and what to look for. We, likewise, are waiting for the fulfillment of another word from God. God gave His Word that He would send a Son, and His Son said that He was coming again.

The advents of the Christ, His first coming in the past and His second coming still to come, are critical to three of God’s covenants: a covenant to bless the nations (Abrahamic), a covenant to establish peace on earth under the Prince of Peace (Davidic), and a covenant to write His law not on stone tablets but on new hearts (New Covenant).

When we think about Christmas we should think about covenants, and how the enfleshed Word has and will fulfill the inspired Word. We have had this Word preached to us, it is our life and our hope, and it reveals what Advent is all about. Don’t let your life, or holiday traditions, keep you from longing for the living and abiding word of God.