During the four weeks before Christmas, a Christian tradition is the season of Advent. The word is from the Latin adventus, which means “arrival”. During Advent, we prepare for the arrival of Christ as a baby born in Bethlehem.
But this season, I’d like to also prepare for the next arrival of Christ: As the King of the Universe who conquered sin and death. The words used to mark each week of Advent — Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love — are equally appropriate for both Arrivals.
This week’s word is Love.
First Advent
For Thanksgiving, our choir sang the song “For the Beauty of the Earth” 1, partly because each verse ends with the refrain “Lord of All, to you we raise this, our hymn of grateful praise.” But for this final week of Advent, I notice instead some of the lyrics from the rest of the song.
For the love which from our birth over and around us lies…
…
For thyself, best Gift Divine,
to the world so freely given,
for that great, great love of thine,
peace on earth, and joy in heaven:
Lord of all, to thee we raise
this our hymn of grateful praise.
Christmas is the opening act of the most perfect expression of love that has ever been known. Jesus said “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13) In context, He was instructing His disciples to have that kind of love for one another as they went on to build His church after He ascended back to Heaven.
But I would contend that He showed even greater love: He laid down His life for His enemies. “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)
At Christmas, we celebrate His birth, His Advent, His arrival on our planet as a human being. But that is really just one checkpoint in a long, long continuum of His love for us.
His love was showing in creation. Out of nothing, He chose to bring our universe into being. He designed it perfectly to be the exact home we needed. He created humanity in His own image, and breathed into us the breath of His own life. He gave us a purpose and delegated to us the authority to act in His name as stewards of the world He had given us.
His love was showing in history. As soon as humanity rebelled and failed to live up to our promise, He started crafting the environment to display His solution. He chose one man, Abraham, to be the patriarch of one nation, Israel, to be the family into which He would be born as the Messiah. He spent millennia hammering out that culture, using them to teach the world about His character, His expectations, and His grace when we fail to meet those expectations.
Once all the setting was in place, He opened the show. He arrived — Advent — to the fanfare of an angel choir. But He didn’t stop there. If He had, the show would have been a flop.
After arriving as the babe in the manger, He “grew in wisdom and stature” (Luke 2:52). He selected a group of disciples, and led them as He traveled the region preaching the Gospel and healing the sick (Matthew 4:23, 9:35, 15:30-31) He confronted corruption among the religious leaders (Matthew 23:13-33), angering them enough to conspire with their Roman oppressors to have Him killed (Mark 15:11-14).
If He had stopped there, the show would have really been a flop! But He didn’t. He rose from the grave, proving His victory and His power over sin and death. He continued to teach His disciples for another month afterward (Acts 1:3). Then He ascended to Heaven, leaving them to go out an “make disciples of all the nations” (Matthew 28:19) until He returns.
Final Advent
Christ’s return will be the closing act of that perfect expression of love. As promised when He left (Acts 1:9-11), He will arrive — Advent — to end the current show. He will wipe out all of the corruption brought by sin, cast out Satan, the instigator of that corruption, and inaugurate the restored world He has always planned.
The current world has always been saturated by His love. But sin has obscured and made it difficult for us to see that love. The restored world will still be saturated by His love. But it will be impossible not to see it. It’s light will replace that of the sun (Isaiah 60:19-20, Revelation 22:5), and will be infinitely brighter!
Love
We do so much to prepare for the Christmas season. We cook; we clean; we shop; we plan; we travel. But during all that, let us praise God for His love, and share it with everyone we contact.
Note: A couple of other similar articles on this site are “God’s Perfect Love” and “The Difference that Christmas Makes“.
Footnotes and Scripture References
- Here’s a video of another choir and congregation singing that beautiful hymn.