Our family has gathered on the Sundays in Advent for the past 20 years. If we are honest, that is actually sometimes Mondays or Tuesdays when we have a real busy week or forget! There is grace in Advent too 😉 We treasure these moments together. They are a sacred space for us to slow down, listen, ponder, share, and pray together. We had some of the most holy moments were when our kids were little bitty during this time. Because we paused and provided a space for them to slow down they would have these wonderful, deep heart revelations.
If Advent is new to you, the word itself means, “coming.” It is the 4 weeks leading up to Christmas. Each week has a theme that helps anchor you to the story of Jesus coming as a baby and the promise that He is coming again to make all things new. Those themes are hope, peace, joy, and love.
This week, the theme is HOPE.
My son and I have been reading Philippians 2 in the car every morning over the last few weeks and are working to memorize it together. Philippians 2 is all about how Jesus took on flesh, limited himself, and became a servant to all mankind by becoming obedient to death. Here are vs. 1-8
1 Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature[a] God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature[b] of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
This part of the passage demonstrates the first coming of Jesus. My mind is always blown that Jesus, who being the very nature of God, obeyed and became a BABY. A helpless, fully dependent on human parents, exposed to the brokenness of the world baby. My heart is stirred by that thought. And then to see him who was all powerful become a servant. Not just a servant but a servant who died for humanity taking on all the brokenness of the world ON PURPOSE to fulfill the promise of God who longed to be WITH the people who were separated by their sin.
When the mankind had no hope on their own, Jesus embodied HOPE. Hope of the most selfless kind: not for his own advantage, made himself nothing, was a servant, humble. Hope that can’t be replicated or faked. Hope that we fathom in part. Hope that is from Heaven. All the promises that creation longed for were fulfilled in the most unlikely form.
The next section of the verse demonstrates the second coming of Jesus that we are still waiting for. Here is what vs. 9-11 say:
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
Do you see the juxtaposition of his first and second coming? Yet, there is consistency, Jesus will be exalted by God and Jesus will obey as that is his proven character. We have HOPE because we can have confidence that Jesus will obey the Father. The HOPE here is again connected to the fulfillment of a promise. When Jesus returns, his presence will bring with it power to make all things NEW (Revelation 21:1-8). All of our aching for things to be made right will be fulfilled.
God is with us.
Today, may you ponder living in the now and not yet. Jesus is going to always fulfill the Father’s plan, and that plan is a good one. You can trust him. You can wake up with hope and go to sleep with hope. May that hope always be our anchor (Hebrews 6:17-20)