Giving Room to Christ

It is no use saying that we are born two thousand years too late to give room to Christ. Nor will those who live at the end of the world have been born too late. Christ is always with us, always asking for room in our hearts.
But now it is with the voice of our contemporaries that he speaks; with the eyes of store clerks, factory workers, and children that he gazes; with the hands of office workers, slum dwellers, and suburban housewives that he gives. It is with the feet of soldiers and tramps that he walks, and with the heart of anyone in need that he longs for shelter. And giving shelter or food to anyone who asks for it, or needs it, is giving it to Christ.
All that the friends of Christ did for him in his lifetime, we can do. Peter’s mother-in-law hastened to cook a meal for him, and if anything in the Gospels can be inferred, it surely is that she gave the very best she had, with no thought of extravagance. Matthew made a feast for him, inviting the whole town, so that the house was in an uproar of enjoyment, and the straitlaced Pharisees – the good people – were scandalised.

Dorothy Day

Awaiting the New

Our world is shaking, about to erupt. Demonic powers are storming the church, like autumn storms sweeping through the woods. We live in a time when people everywhere are agitated; the masses are confused as to what is true and what is false; and yet they are waiting for what is ultimately to come. And it shall come!
The more the false prophets of today are proven wrong, the more expectation will mount. It is a good thing, then, if through hardship and suffering everything is cleared away that is opposed to God’s authority. Christ is seeking a people where he alone rules – in the church and in the world.
Therefore, let us lift up our heads and look up! Deliverance is approaching. We live in the midst of tyranny, encircled on all sides, seemingly unfree. But let us lift our heads high; the hour of our liberation is drawing near. Now we must be strong in the hope that God will reveal his redemption; he who is coming will take away everything that is part of our fallen nature.

Eberhard Arnold

Preparing for Christmas

Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care…Even the angels long to look into these things (1 Peter 1:10, 12).

How would Christ want us to prepare for Christmas? In what way might he want us to remember his birth?

Obviously, Christians around the world celebrate Christmas differently. Traditions, customs, rituals, and symbols are as varied as the people who engage them. As meaningful as these expressions are, they bear little importance if Christ himself is not born again in our midst. Celebration is a distraction if not accompanied by conversion; remembering is futile if we fail to experience redemption.

Christmas is indeed something to anticipate – the very wonder of Advent. It is a season of joy for good reason: it is the news of a Saviour being born, of light breaking into darkness, of God’s peace and goodwill to all. But joy is more than merriment. For those who only want to have a good time or a feeling of togetherness, Christmas brings little more than a temporary feeling of cheer. Afterwards, life goes on as before. But for the one who feels bankrupt, without really meaning or hope – either for themselves or for the world – for the one who senses that something is terribly wrong with the ways things are, Christmas can be genuinely life changing.

Advent is a time of preparation, to meet Christ anew. It should point us to the fact that the God of the universe finds himself most at home in people who feel their need and are personally ready to come to the manger. Christmas is glad tidings indeed, but only for those who are starkly honest with themselves and recognise that life must change.

Charles Moore, When the Time Was Fulfilled

Advent Thought

When the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons (Galatians 4:4-5).

Paul writes that when the time had fully come, God sent his son, born of woman. We must not take this to mean some specific hour, like midday. God’s time comes under the influence of the spirit. under God’s direction something matures – and then the time comes. If Israel had been more faithful, the time would have been fulfilled much earlier; it could even have been in Isaiah’s time. But God does not send his son if there is no one who prepared for him. Where would he go?

For this reason God’s time depends partly on us. If we follow God’s word faithfully, if we understand the ways of God and hold firmly to the goal, the last days will come. Thus we should not think that Christ’s birth was connected with the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire did not have the slightest significance for the kingdom of God. But whether a Simeon was there or not, or a Mary, or other people who expected God’s kingdom – that was significant. Then the time could come, as it actually did. When the Word of God becomes true through faith, something is made ready in the hearts of people.

This is our hope too. Our faith is that the Saviour will come soon. I am often asked, “How do you know that?” I answer bluntly, “Because I want the Saviour to come soon. That is why he is near – there is no other reason!” The cause of Christ must be fulfilled wherever there are people who are waiting for it. There it will be, there it will come! That is why the time was close at hand for the apostles. And today, something toward the Day of Christ can happen if we surrender ourselves for this. Preparations for this can begin already. When it matures in our hearts, it will spread rapidly throughout the world; then the Last Day will come, the last, great Christmas!

Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt, When the Time Was Fulfilled

Advent Transformation

If we want advent to transform us – our homes and hearts, and even nations – then the great question for us is whether we will come out of the convulsions of our time with this determination: Yes, arise! It is time to awaken from sleep. A waking up must begin somewhere. It is time to put things back where God intended them. It is time for each of us to go to work – certain that the Lord will come – to set our life in God’s order wherever we can. Where God’s word is heard, he will not cheat us of the truth; where our life rebels he will reprimand it.
We need people who are moved by the horrific calamities and emerge from them with the knowledge that those who look to the Lord will be preserved by him, even if they are hounded from the earth.
The advent message comes out of our encounter with God, with the gospel. It is thus the message that shakes– so that in the end the entire world shall be shaken. The fact that the son of man shall come again is more than a historic prophecy; it is also a decree that God’s coming and the shaking up of humanity are somehow connected.
The great question to us is whether we are still capable of being truly shocked – or whether we will continue to see thousands of things that we know should not be and must not be and yet remain hardened to them. In how many ways have we become indifferent and used to things that ought not to be?

Alfred Delp

The Coming of Christ

Why was it necessary for Christ to come to the earth? God came to us because we, by our own power of soul, by our own emotions, even the noblest and most sublime, can never attain redemption, can never regain communion with God.
True expectancy, the waiting that is genuine and from the heart, is brought about by the coming of the Holy Spirit, by God coming to us, not by our own devices. Spiritual depth, if it is true, is the working of God coming down and penetrating to the depths of our hearts, and not of our own soul’s climbing. No ladder of mysticism can ever meet or find or possess God. Faith is a power given to us. It is never simply our ability or strength of will to believe.
To put it quite simply, spiritual experience, whether it be of faith, hope (or expectancy) or love, is something we cannot manufacture, but which we can only receive. If we direct our lives to seeking it for ourselves we shall lose it, but if we lose our lives by living out the daily way of Christ we shall find it…
The direction to which our wills must be put is, like Mary, in obedience to God’s will. Then something decisive happens for this earth. In place of the confusion of injustice, strife, open war and treachery, there is revealed a path of the most lively unity and clarity. We are released from the servitude of our own wants and desires, our selfish hopes and fears – we are redeemed, we become free.

Philip Britts

God's powerlessness

Jesus is God-with-us, Emmanuel. The great mystery of God becoming human is God's desire to be loved by us. By becoming a vulnerable child, completely dependent on human care, God wants to take away all distance between the human and the divine.
Who can be afraid of a little child that needs to be fed, to be cared for, to be taught, to be guided? We usually talk about God as the all-powerful, almighty God on whom we depend completely. But God wanted to become the all-powerless, all-vulnerable God who completely depends on us. How can we be afraid of a God who wants to be "God-with-us" and needs us to become "Us-with-God"?

- Henri Nouwen

A Defining Moment In History

"So all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying: 'Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,' which is translated, 'God is with us'." (Matthew 1:22,23 NKJV)
I have often referenced the quote by the talk show host Larry King, in his response to a particular question: "If you could select any one person across all of history to interview, who would it be?" Mr. King's answer was that he would like to interview Jesus Christ. When the questioner followed with, "And what would you like to ask Him?" King replied, "I would like to ask Him if he was indeed virgin-born. The answer to that question would define history for me."

- Ravi Zacharias in "Questions I Would Like to Ask God"

Clothing

All these changes did the Merciful One make,
stripping off glory and putting on a body;
for He had devised a way to reclothe Adam
in that glory which he had stripped off.
He was wrapped in swaddling clothes,
corresponding to Adam's leaves,
he put on clothes
in place of Adam's skins;
He was baptised for Adams sin,
He was embalmed for Adam's death,
He rose and raised Adam up in His glory.
Blessed is He who descended
put Adam on and ascended.

St Ephrem the Syrian
Hymns on the Nativity XXIII.13
Translated by Sebastian Brock

The Wonderful Truth

God's astounding and radical intervention in our human history cannot be contained in the tame and timid displays of Christmas lights, catchy slogans, or the exchange of gifts.
Advent confronts us once again with God's unparalleled effort to communicate the message that all humankind is embraced and held close by a God of love. Jesus Christ has come, is present with us, and will come again in final victory when all darkness, pain, and evil will be no more.
In Advent we begin again to try to make plain the wonderful truth of the most extraordinary good news the world has ever heard. Soon we will join the angelic chorus in singing, "Christ the Savior is born."

- Norman Shawchuck and Rueben P. Job in "A Guide to Prayer for All Who Seek God"

With Devastating Humility

By far the most significant event in the whole course of human history will be celebrated, with or without understanding, at the end of this season, Advent. What we are in fact celebrating is the awe-inspiring humility of God, and no amount of familiarity with the trappings of Christmas should ever blind us to it. God’s intervening into human history came about with an almost frightening quietness and self-effacement, and as millions will testify, he will come once again with the same silence and the same devastating humility into any heart ready to receive him.

- J. B. Phillips