"Behold, I will do something new, Now it will spring forth; Will you not be aware of it? I will even make a roadway in the wilderness, Rivers in the desert. The beasts of the field will glorify Me, The jackals and the ostriches, Because I have given waters in the wilderness And rivers in the desert, To give drink to My chosen people. The people whom I formed for Myself Will declare My praise. Isaiah 43:19-21 (NASB) Hymn: "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel" Translated by John M. Neale, Thomas Helmore God promised that He would do a new thing. Elsewhere He describes a new covenant that He would bring to His people, one in which there would be no need for further instruction of the Law because it would be written on the hearts of His people. Here, though, He focuses on the glory of that coming day, when He would do something so new and wonderful that creation itself would benefit, that the beasts would glorify God, and that His people would declare His praise. 'Behold, days are coming,' declares the LORD, 'when I will fulfill the good word which I have spoken concerning the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch of David to spring forth; and He shall execute justice and righteousness on the earth. Jeremiah 33:14-15 (NASB) This coming day is promised to be one where justice reigns, where the people of God have their needs met, where righteousness shall be the norm.
When Christ came the first time, He initiated the fulfillment of God's promises, but He isn't done yet. We wait in eager hope for that coming day where there will be no more wickedness, no more strife, no more injustice. As we wait, we must see the work God has done and offer Him the praise He is due. And while we wait, we must look forward in eager anticipation of the final fulfillment of His promises. Advent is a period built into the Christian year that refocuses our attention on the waiting, on the anticipation, on the pending joy that we can feel bubbling up inside us as we look to that ever-closer day. As we inch toward Christmas, let us ask God to teach us to enjoy the waiting and take solace in the promise.
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Blessed be the LORD, Because He has heard the voice of my supplication. The LORD is my strength and my shield; My heart trusts in Him, and I am helped; Therefore my heart exults, And with my song I shall thank Him. The LORD is their strength, And He is a saving defense to His anointed. Save Your people and bless Your inheritance; Be their shepherd also, and carry them forever. Psalm 28:6-9 (NASB) Hymn: "Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee" Henry Van Dyke, Ludwig van Beethoven At the very end of John 16, we get the sobering reminder from Christ that we will have trouble in the world. This life of walking with God will not be easy and it will put us at odds with the world around us. Consider just the thoughts from yesterday, that we must be open doors even while the world around us erects more walls. But Jesus doesn't end that thought with the warning of coming trials. That there will be trouble is part of a sandwich of encouragement, as He says that "These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world." (John 16:33 NASB). Paul understood this well when he told the Corinthians in chapter 16 of his first letter to them that he will be staying in Ephesus until Pentecost because of an opportunity that had arisen that was accompanied by adversity. He does not offer the adversity as a counter-point, but as part of his explanation for why he had to remain. What drives this? Joy. If our hearts are fixed on Christ and take their pleasure from Him, we can face troubles in this life with peace and courage, and view them as a part of our joy rather than a hindrance. Paul reminds Timothy of this very idea twice in rapid succession. But godliness [actually] is a means of great gain when accompanied by contentment. For we have brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it either. If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content. But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. But flee from these things, you man of God, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance [and] gentleness... ...Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy. [Instruct them] to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is life indeed. 1 Timothy 6:6-11, 17-19 (NASB) In the first, he is contrasting our joy and contentment with controversy and the arrogance of opposing the gospel. In the latter, he is commanding Timothy to remind people to look beyond their Earthly circumstances to find their joy in service to Christ. Isaiah, on the other hand, offers warning to those who do rely on their own circumstances to give them meaning and hope and joy. "Your covenant with death will be canceled, And your pact with Sheol will not stand; When the overwhelming scourge passes through, Then you become its trampling [place.] As often as it passes through, it will seize you; For morning after morning it will pass through, [anytime] during the day or night, And it will be sheer terror to understand what it means. The bed is too short on which to stretch out, And the blanket is too small to wrap oneself in. Isaiah 28:18-20 (NASB) Over and over again, scripture warns us that looking to anything of this world to bring us joy will end in misery, placing our hope in Earthly things and circumstances will bring terror. We must learn to look beyond this life to the giver of all life, the One who is Life itself. In Him we may find our true joy. But while we dwell in this flesh and look with these fallen eyes, we can expect to struggle against despair. We must continually go to God in prayer and in His word, and ask Him to renew the joy in our lives. He who is our joy, who made us to find our joy in Him, surely knows how to deliver joy to us. Q. 1. What is the chief end of man? A. Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever. Q. 2. What rule hath God given to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy him? A. The Word of God, which is contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, is the only rule to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy him. Westminster Shorter Catechism Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have [its] perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
James 1:2-4 (NASB) Hymn: "At Calvary" William R. Newell, Daniel B. Towner Jesus knew what awaited Him in Jerusalem. Luke tells us that "he set his face to go to Jerusalem," knowing full well what would happen there (Luke 9:51b, ESV). We know that He knew, not only because we trust in His divine foresight, but because He told His disciples what was coming. And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. And He was stating the matter plainly. And Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. But turning around and seeing His disciples, He rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind Me, Satan; for you are not setting your mind on God's interests, but man's." And He summoned the crowd with His disciples, and said to them, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel's will save it." Mark 8:31-35 (NASB) In Mark 8, cited above, Jesus asks the disciples who everyone else says that He is, then asks who they believe He is, then celebrate's Peter's recognition that He is the Christ. Then He begins to explain what lies ahead, and Peter stands against it, and Jesus condemns that response and resumes teaching. Now, I don't actually believe that Jesus was changing the topic when He began explaining His upcoming death. What I mean by that is that, while it is widely recognized that this was all one conversation, I've heard very few attempts to connect Jesus' coming death with His questions about everyone's perception of His identity. I submit that this is what Jesus was talking about the whole time. His questions highlighted the expectations of the people around Jesus, and how He was subverting them. He wasn't living up to what people expected of John the Baptist, but He was kinda close. He spoke like a prophet but seemed to have authority beyond theirs. He met some of the expectations of the returning Elijah, but even that didn't quite stack up. He slipped into a number of categories of what the world was expecting, but He didn't quite fit in any of them, and so people didn't know what to do with Him. The answer, of course, was that He was the awaited Messiah, but there was a reason that didn't make the list of outside interpretations: the Messiah they were expecting really had very little in common with the Jesus that walked among them. And this is where the next part of the conversation goes. Peter, having confessed that Jesus is the Christ, is suddenly being confronted with the realization that even his own ideas of what that means are being subverted. He was close enough to see the Christ in Jesus, but not yet close enough to realize what that meant for his notions of a Christ. Jesus sets about removing false notions and replacing them with truth, Peter pushes back, and Jesus makes a very firm rebuke that forces him to listen. He then continues subverting expectations, talking about laying down one's life, taking up crosses, standing beside the Christ not in worldly victory but in suffering. And we can enter into that suffering without shame, looking forward in joy. James notes above that our trials should be treated as occasions for joy, not because of what they are, but because of who we will be on the other side of them. Jesus, who set his face "as flint," as described in Isaiah 50:7, can also claim the surrounding lines that He would not be disgraced or ashamed; even when tortured, put on public display, stripped, hung on a cross as a reproach both from the Romans and from His religious environment (after all, any hung from a tree were accursed), Jesus could come through without disgrace because He knew what awaited on the other side. "There I will cause the horn of David to spring forth; I have prepared a lamp for Mine anointed. His enemies I will clothe with shame, But upon himself his crown shall shine." Psalm 132:17-18 (NASB) Jesus knew what death awaited Him, and He knew what victory He would claim over it. And as such, He could go forth, confident in the knowledge that no trial or disgrace He faced on this earth would surpass the riches in glory He would receive after it. And we, who have died with Christ and share in His sufferings and His victory, can look forward with the same joy and confidence that He had, regardless of what shame the world tries to lay on us, because we too shall some day be on the other side of death.
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Scripture quotations taken from the NASB. Copyright by The Lockman Foundation
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