A Season Of Arrival

We view our slight, short-lived troubles in the light of eternity. We see our difficulties as the substance that produces for us an eternal, weighty glory far beyond all comparison, because we don’t focus our attention on what is seen but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but the unseen realm is eternal.  2 Corinthians 4:17-18 TPT 

In the days preceding Christmas, we as Christians celebrate a season of arrival, Advent. It begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas Day and so this year Advent will begin on November 29 and end on December 24. 

During this time we set our hearts to intentionally enter a period of waiting and longing leading up to Christmas Day. Really, waiting symbolically reminds us of the same waiting and longing felt by the Hebrew prophets of the Old Testament as they waited for the arrival of the Messiah. 

Can we pause long enough to think about what it was like in those times?

Whoa, beautiful, tragic, difficult, joyful. Jesus Christ.

Matthew 2:1-6 TPT Jesus was born in Bethlehem near Jerusalem during the reign of King Herod. After Jesus’ birth a group of spiritual priests from the East came to Jerusalem and inquired of the people, “Where is the child who is born king of the Jewish people? We observed His star rising in the sky and we’ve come to bow before Him in worship.” King Herod was shaken to the core when he heard this, and not only him, but all of Jerusalem was disturbed when they heard this news. So he called a meeting of the Jewish ruling priests and religious scholars, demanding that they tell him where the promised Messiah was prophesied to be born. “He will be born in Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,” they told him. “Because the prophecy states: And you, little Bethlehem, are not insignificant among the clans of Judah, for out of you will emerge the Shepherd-King of my people Israel!”

Whoa, let’s pause, and pour out our hearts in humble adoration for the One who came to redeem us while we were utterly powerless.

If I stop long enough, I see a love so extravagant, so lavish, so relentless that it broke into the darkness of the world that long ago Christmas morning. A love so unfailing, so divine that it continues to pour down on us. Today. Here and now. Soaking us in His grace. 

Christmas is the love story of God who loved us enough to send His one and only Son to the earth. It’s the story of our living God who would humble Himself and give up His throne for a manger in a stable.

Let’s seek Him faithfully as the wise men, the magi, did! 

These men were just as their name describes: They were the intellectuals of their land. The wise men were the ones whom people of influence sought when they needed counsel. They were respected. They were leaders. They were successful.

Matthew 2:7-9 TPT Then Herod secretly summoned the spiritual priests from the East to ascertain the exact time the star first appeared. And he told them, “Now go to Bethlehem and carefully look there for the child, and when you’ve found Him, report to me so that I can go and bow down and worship Him too.” And so they left, and on their way to Bethlehem, suddenly the same star they had seen in the East reappeared! Amazed, they watched as it went ahead of them and stopped directly over the place where the child was.

I am left awestruck with these verses, with the Bible, have you ever been stopped in your tracks by the timeless magnificence of the bright stars as you look up into the clear night sky? Sensed the heaviness of His power that He carefully pours over us with a loving weightlessness because God longs for our salvation, not to crush us, He paves a way for us, our surrender to Jesus as our risen Saviour. 

It is all God, created by Him