It’s Advent Season again, and most of us know the story—i.e., God came after us personally. God himself came into this world so that we might have the disappointment of life without God eradicated and abundant life restored. God came as a baby in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Every year, we remember God’s coming. This Advent 2011, we will be guided in our remembrance by Paul’s teaching in Colossians 1.

Come, Desire of Nations, Come

Sociologists point out that the theme of many human beings in the 21st century is an underlying disappointment with life as we have experienced it. This expresses itself in countless ways:

• expecting a marriage to fill an almost inexplicable void;
• living life through our children—hoping that they will find something we haven’t;
• career dissatisfaction—thinking (or hoping) that a job change will make life better;
• midlife crises—hitting a point in life when we realize that we haven’t found yet what we’re looking for—and that we probably are never going to…

The Bible gives an explanation for this disappointment. Scripture tells us that we were made to be shaped by the presence of God in our lives. The heart of our human search for fulfillment stems from Genesis 3 when people walked away from the one who alone can fulfill. The first humans disobeyed God and hid from him. As we know, the disobedience and hiding continue.

But the beautiful good news of the Bible is that God has not given up on us. God loves the people of the world even as we run away from him. Still, God keeps coming after us, and from Genesis 4 until Matthew 1, God carried out a plan to make us right with him again.

It’s Advent Season again, and most of us know the story—i.e., God came after us personally. God himself came into this world so that we might have the disappointment of life without God eradicated and abundant life restored. God came as a baby in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Every year, we remember God’s coming. This Advent 2011, we will be guided in our remembrance by Paul’s teaching in Colossians 1. (I encourage you to read this chapter often this month.) We will join carol writer William Chatterton Dix in asking “What Child Is This?” And, I will be asking us all to be praying for people we love who need to find abundant life in the only way possible: through entrusting their lives to Jesus as their savior and lord.

This first Advent weekend, we will be looking at the longing the world had from Genesis 4 until Jesus’ birth for God’s long-prophesied coming. As the Christmas carol says so beautifully, “Long lay the world in sin and error pining… 'til he appeared!"

To His Glory,

Dr. Greg Waybright
Senior Pastor