Test nightmares.
Have you ever had a dream that you walked into your classroom only to discover that today was the final and you had not cracked a book all semester? The anxiety of being unprepared for the important things grips us. If only someone would have helped us prepare.
This is our call to get ready. We do not have to be unprepared. Christmas of course is not a test, but it is an event to be prepared for.
Are you ready?
Christmas is the day we celebrate the incarnation, the mysterious and shocking reality that the eternal Son of God has come in humility as a baby. Jesus, fully God and fully man, will forever have a body like ours. God has moved into the neighborhood. We must prepare to behold this reality of Christmas, which is why Christians have observed the season of Advent for more than a thousand years.
This Sunday is the first Sunday of Advent, a season of four weeks leading up to and preparing us for Christmas. Theologian and worship scholar Robert Webber reminds us that Advent is, “a corporate spiritual journey that calls for expectant waiting and readiness for the coming of the Christ. When the Church travels this journey and treats it as a discipline of life and prayer, the joy of Christmas is immeasurably intensified.”
Will you give yourself to Advent this year, to the preparation for Christmas? God will use it to comfort, encourage, and restore you.
I can’t wait to worship together.
Pastor David
