Sunday was the first Sunday of Advent, the four Sundays leading up to Christmas. As I mentioned on Sunday, all 19 of the references to Christ’s “advent” (parousia) in the New Testament are in regard to His second coming.

During the Advent season, we set our minds upon Christ’s first advent as a babe in Bethlehem in order to draw our minds to all that He accomplished on our behalf so that we might increasingly long for His second advent. In the “Christ Hymn” of Philippians 2:6-11, Paul draws our attention to both of the advents of Christ, for we who live in between Christ’s first and second Advents must live our lives in light of both of them.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a pastor in Nazi Germany who was eventually executed by hanging on April 9, 1945 at the age of 39, said this in one of his advent sermons:

• Celebrating Advent means learning how to wait. Waiting is an art which our impatient age has forgotten. We want to pluck the fruit before it has had time to ripen… The blessedness of waiting is lost on those who cannot wait, and the fulfillment of promise is never theirs. They want quick answers to the deepest questions of life and miss the value of those times of anxious waiting, seeking with patient uncertainties until the answers come…
  
  
• Not all can wait—certainly not those who are satisfied, contented, and feel that they live in the best of all possible worlds! Those who learn to wait are uneasy about their way of life, but yet have seen a vision of greatness in the world of the future and are patiently expecting its fulfillment. The celebration of Advent is possible only to those who are troubled in soul, who know themselves to be poor and imperfect, and who look forward to something greater to come.

Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. (James 5:7)

Blessings in Christ,

Pastor Evan