Anticipating Christ

One of my absolute favourite times of the year is Advent. Not just Christmas itself, but the four weeks leading up to it that the liturgical church celebrates as Advent. There's something in me that just loves the idea of eagerly anticipating and celebrating the birth of our Saviour.

Each week, a candle is lit, and each candle signifies a word that is the focus of that week: hope, love, joy, peace. (A fifth candle is lit on Christmas day to represent Christ, and the light that he brings to the world.) We sings songs that tell of the coming of the Christ-child, and read some of the greatest passages in the Bible: prophecies of the Messiah coming to earth, that were spoken hundreds of years before his birth.

Hope

This weekend I went to a conference designed to help me understand and learn more about what career paths are available to me once I've finished with my degree. Presenters spoke on a myriad of job areas including government, policy, business, academia, education (no, those are not the same), consulting and more. There were also workshops on resume writing, networking and other useful skills for a job search. I got a lot of great info and access to lots of resources to help me decide what I want to do next.

As I was processing the events of the day this verse came to mind:

Mercy

In reading Jonah 4, some of us may find it silly that Jonah got angry with God for pardoning the people of Nineveh. God had sent Jonah to this city to warn the people to turn form their wicked ways. After initially running from that call (and we all know how that one turned out), Jonah eventually went and spoke the Word of God to the people of Nineveh. And they listened! And because they did so, God turned his wrath away from them and spared the city. Upon hearing this, Jonah was upset that the people of Nineveh were going to "get away" with their sin and the city wouldn't be destroyed, even though that was the entire point of Jonah going to Nineveh!

Mourning Jesus

"And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son." (Zech 12:10)

When we think of Jesus, it's almost always with some positive emotion. We celebrate his birth, follow his life, commemorate his death and rejoice over his resurrection. These things are all great, and we should do them. But when do we take the time to "look upon the one we have pierced" and mourn for him? How often do we rend our hearts at what he had to go through for us so that we could have everlasting life?

And He will be called...

It's interesting to see the hype about Christmas when the actual birth of Jesus went by largely unnoticed, despite having been foretold for centuries. But perhaps it isn't such hype. I mean, today the celebration of the birth of Jesus is a minor part of what Christmas is in the 21st century anyway. So I guess the actual birth of Jesus is still going largely unnoticed. =(

How about what we take a look at a tiny portion of what the coming of the Christ really meant. 

Humiliated?

Have you ever been completely and utterly humiliated? Maybe it was when you fell down in front of a crowd, or did something wrong and got called out publicly on it, or something like that. In any case, you probably wished that you could disappear on cue. You might have felt ashamed, small, insignificant, the object of unnecessary attention. The point is, it was not a pleasant feeling, you probably hung your head, you didn't want to look at anyone, maybe you even cried. It might even hurt to think about it now!