#waitwhy

Remember the excitement you had for Christmas as a child? How we all couldn’t sleep and tried to get up as early as humanly possible so that we could open our gifts Christmas morning? 

The anticipation for Christmas is most evident in the hearts of small children. Unfortunately, when we grow up we tend to forget about how exciting Christmas used to be for us, and are somewhat surprised and annoyed when we realize it’s time to start looking for gifts in the midst of all the other things we have to do. 

While it’s not a bad thing to stop incessantly asking for a certain gift from an imaginary man with a beard, I actually think that the kids got this one right—there should be a sense of anticipation as we enter the Christmas season. This time of year where children struggle to wait is actually a biblical concept—we call it advent. 

Advent is more than something you do to get to Christmas or a reason for companies to sell more calendars. In fact, without advent, Christmas doesn’t actually have much meaning. 

Christmas celebrates the birth of our savior, but advent is a lived-out retelling of the story behind Christ’s birth and a reminder of the promises of God. 

What is advent? 

Advent is the period of anticipation that points to the coming messiah. The word is a version of the latin word for “coming.” For Christians (at least those in US evangelical protestant traditions), the advent season begins on the 4th Sunday before Christmas. 

For my church, advent means the lighting of 5 candles each Sunday and Christmas eve for one month. Each candle signifies a different part of the Christmas story. For other traditions, advent may include special daily prayers or even fasting in preparation for Christmas. 

The important part of advent is not exactly what you do, but that you are reflecting on the importance and reasons for the coming Messiah, preparing your heart to receive him on Christmas day. 

What does advent signify? 

Advent represents two separate periods of waiting: We’ll start with the Israelites. 

In the Old Testament (OT), God continually weaves together the story of his people with the promise of a coming messiah to save the people from their sins. This promise first appears in Genesis 3, directly after the fall when God promises Adam and Eve that one of their offspring would “bruise [the serpent’s] head.” The serpent had tempted Eve to sin, therefore he would be judged with a coming “serpent crusher.” As God continues to make promises to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, and Solomon, this hero figure continues to be mentioned as the ultimate fulfillment of each promise—a king from the line of David, yet greater than David. 

Then, the Israelites get conquered by the Assyrian and Babylonian empires. The Davidic line is lost. The temple is destroyed. The people are spread through all the lands. Yet the promises of God do not fade. Throughout the prophets that speak to Israel during this dark time, the promises of a new King that will liberate his people continue to appear and develop. He will come from Bethlehem (Micah 5:2). He will be called a Nazarene (Isaiah 11). He would be born of a virgin (Isaiah 7). He would be the son of God (Psalm 2). He would do healing signs (Isaiah 35). He would be pierced for our transgressions (Isaiah 52). He would bring a new covenant for all people (Jeremiah 31). 

Imagine the anticipation for the Israelites as they waited for hundreds of years in exile for the coming of new and greater king to vindicate them. They didn’t wait just 4 Sundays for Christmas, they waited over 400 years. It makes us understand why the Angels announced the news to the shepherds, and they ran to praise the newborn king, why Simeon in the temple said he could die now that he had seen the promises of God fulfilled in baby Jesus (Luke 2), and why every single OT passage that Jesus told the jews was about himself caused a scandal in Jerusalem. 

Jesus was everything that they had waited for. 

The world received it’s Messiah once, but the story isn’t over yet. The second part of advent is just as crucial. The second period of waiting in anticipation for the Messiah is now. We are waiting for the return of the king. We are waiting for a new heaven and new earth—the fulfillment of the promises of God. Advent isn’t just about the past, it’s also a reminder that we are currently waiting (as the Israelites did), and that the Messiah will come (just as we celebrate on Christmas).

Advent is a reminder that because God fulfilled his promises to the Israelites through Jesus Christ, so will he fulfill his promises to us through Christ’s second-coming. 

Think about it: Joy to the World isn’t a Christmas song at all, and neither is O Come O Come Emmanuel. They are both advent songs. O Come O Come relays the emotion of waiting for the liberation of the Messiah for a people in exile. It awaits Jesus’ coming. And Joy to the World? It’s theme is not the birth of Jesus, but rather the second-coming! Advent does remember the past, which helps us to celebrate Christmas in all it’s weighty glory, but it is also a reminder of what is to come. It encourages us to wait. 

Joy to the world The Lord has come Let earth receive her King Let every heart prepare Him room And heaven and nature sing And heaven and nature sing And heaven and heaven and nature sing

-31Women (Beth) 

This post is part of the #waitwhy series. You can find more posts like this here. 

This post is part of the #waitwhy series. You can find the rest here.

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” (John 1:1) 

Do we get how incredibly profound that statement is? The creator of the universe, the perfect and holy being, the king of the world, looked down on his people and heard their cries of suffering - a suffering we ourselves cause through sin and rebellion. He chose to have compassion on our stone-cold hearts. God himself literally came to dwell among us. 

And the reason he did so starts way back when with a very different man. Once upon a time, Adam had a choice to make, and he choose badly. He choose pride, disobedience, and selfishness over a perfect and holy relationship with the Lord his God. It was all downhill from there. Sin entered the world, and God’s people rebelled against him. The Israelites, God’s chosen people, made idols and disobeyed the law they had been given. They turned their backs on the promises of God. The judges that led the people made idols for them to worship rather than turning them to God. The kings anointed to rule over the people sinned and their kingdoms fell into ruins. 

We needed someone who wouldn’t ever make those choices: a leader who would obey the voice of the Lord, a judge who would always be just, and a king with a reign that will never end. 

In short, we needed heaven to meet earth. We needed a person that would be both God and man. That person was Jesus Christ, called Immanuel or “God with us.” 

Jesus is both fully God and fully man. He is God and he chose to become incarnate on earth as a human. Both of these aspect of Jesus are important to understand why he decided to come to earth as a man. 

Fully God

Without being fully God, Jesus would not have had the authority to forgive sins. Let’s take a look at this passage found in the gospel of Luke: 

18 And behold, some men were bringing on a bed a man who was paralyzed, and they were seeking to bring him in and lay him before Jesus, 19 but finding no way to bring him in, because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down with his bed through the tiles into the midst before Jesus. 20 And when he saw their faith, he said, “Man, your sins are forgiven you.” 21 And the scribes and the Pharisees began to question, saying, “Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?” 22 When Jesus perceived their thoughts, he answered them, “Why do you question in your hearts? 23 Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’? 24 But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the man who was paralyzed—“I say to you, rise, pick up your bed and go home.” 25 And immediately he rose up before them and picked up what he had been lying on and went home, glorifying God.

When Jesus said to the man “your sins are forgiven,” what did the other people in the room immediately think? “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” Only God can save. By forgiving a man for his sins, Jesus showed himself to be God- the one and only forgiver of sins. 

Fully Man

But Jesus was also fully human. Look at this passage in Hebrews: 

14 Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, 15 and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. 16 For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. 17 Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. 18 For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

God meets us where we are. Because we are “flesh and blood,” the “Word” (i.e. Jesus) had to “become flesh and dwell among us.” Jesus becoming human has a three-fold purpose in these verses.

1. He had to die - (verses 14-15) God is eternal; it is against his nature to die, therefore Jesus had to become flesh to die and he needed to die in order to take away our sins (next post we’ll talk about why, stay tuned!). 

2. He became the link between God and humans - (verse 17) In the Old Testament, the high priest was the person designated by God to connect his holy self and his people, but even this high priest couldn’t fulfill their role perfectly because they were still sinners, just like the people. Jesus took on the role of the “merciful and faithful high priest” when he died and rose again. He was perfect, so he could have true community with God, but he was also human, so he could have true community with us. He is our link to God. The high priest that acts as mediator between heaven and earth! 

3. He wanted to be able to encourage us - (verse 18) Because Jesus became flesh, he experience the same things that we do everyday. He was tempted, he felt pain, he was hungry, and he suffered. He understands what it is like to live in a broken world and be weak. Now that he does, he can comfort us in our distress and encourage us in our temptations. 

“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel (which means, God with us).”  (Matthew 1:23) 

Sin just doesn’t always seem that... evil. I get it. There are times when I get away with my sins, and no one seems to get hurt at all. It almost feels like it doesn’t matter what I do anymore. Sure, murder is pretty bad, but not keeping the sabbath? Not using God’s name in vain? It just doesn’t feel all that bad!

One of the faults I often make when sharing the gospel is either downplaying or exaggerating the role of sin in the salvation story. We can go to the extremes of “God’s wrath will descend upon you because you’re going to hell for sure you heathen” or “You can do whatever the heck you want now that Jesus died. Bye!” Both of these options are superficial readings of scripture, leaving out the depth of who God is. They take our focus away from Christ and onto ourselves. One condemns, the other excuses, but both are about the technicalities of our sin, rather than the character of our God.

Here’s the thing- sin is a BIG DEAL. Every tiny little decision you make has an impact on both your own soul, and on the lives of others around you.

Here’s why, it causes death and destruction. Sin may look good and even feel right at first, but ultimately it destroys us. It fails to fill the void that we’re always looking to satisfy. It disappoints us and distracts us from the truth of God. When Adam and Eve first ate of the tree in Genesis 3, it looked good, tasted good, and seemed that it would give them something they wanted. Yet moments later, they only felt shame. But sin doesn’t just impact our own hearts and lives. When you sin, there is always another victim. Someone is always being betrayed, disappointed, and hurt by our bad decisions.

Let’s look at the consequences of sin on both spiritual and relational levels…

Sin breaks the relationship between us and God. God is holy. God cannot sin. In his very nature, God cannot tolerate the presence of sin. When Adam and Eve sinned, they were driven out of the garden, away from the presence of the Holy God (Genesis 3:22-24). They were not being excessively punished or unjustly charged with a punishment for eating fruit, they were driven out because what they had in Eden was broken (though not beyond repair!). They were no longer able to live in a place that was created in perfection because they were no longer innocent nor vulnerable.

Sin brings shame. The shame of our past decisions often weigh on us so heavily that we feel unable to change our actions. It feels hopeless and we feel like utter failures, beyond repair.

Sin is addictive. Once we give into one temptation, it’s like a waterslide down. For example, the first time a person uses drugs, they impact the individual to their full capacity. The next time this person uses drugs, it takes a higher dose to get the same response. Gradually, the person becomes so accustomed to the impact of drugs that the higher doses destroy their capability to stop. All sin works the same way. A white lie can so easily lead to compulsive lying mentality. One experience with mild porn soon becomes a necessity for more and more extreme versions.

Sin is inherently selfish. When we sin, we take away from other people. Sin drains, love replenishes. Lying = taking away truth, murder = taking away life, etc.

Sin changes our thought processes towards the people around us. When we sin, we put ourselves first, which leads us to exploit others for our own benefit or neglect people that needed us. For example, The more we misuse our sexuality, the more we begin to objectify others around us, leading to sexual harassment and (in extreme cases) sexual violence.

Sin is evil and it does matter. There is no wiggle room on that truth, but here’s the second thing we understand about sin- sin is a big deal, but it is not the biggest deal. The grace of God is victorious over sin always and forever. The grace of God covers over our sin completely. “But he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you..” (2 Corinthians 12:9). There is sufficient grace to cover big deal sins. And that is where we find our gospel.

Sin matters, Christ matters more.

Think the Old Testament (OT) is boring? Irrelevant? WRONG. The OT is a beautiful picture of God’s love for his people, and his promise to provide a savior. I wouldn’t be able to fit all the imagery of the OT that points to the gospel in 10,000 million books, but I can try to hit some high points in a few hundred words. 

Like we already established, God is holy and cannot tolerate sin, yet wants to be in relationship with us, a sinful people. In our day and age, we have the righteousness of Christ and the seal of the Holy Spirit bridging the way to communication and interaction with our God. However, for most of the Bible, God’s people didn’t have this covering for sin and promise of eternal life. In Exodus, when the Israelites (the chosen nation of God in the OT) were brought out of Egypt on the way to the promised land, God gave them the law they were to follow in obedience to him. He also gave them instructions to build a tabernacle where God himself would dwell among them (think pre-Holy Spirit). 

In our eyes today, these laws seem strange, and at times, even unnecessary. We understand the 10 commandments, but staying away from dead bodies? Sacrificing animals? Not eating certain foods? They may seem strange now, but at that time, God was protecting, guiding, and shepherding his people. He was keeping them healthy through laws about their bodies, instructing them about being holy as he is holy through his moral laws, and providing ways for their guilt to be covered through sacrifices. 

The Old Testament law showed the character of God, and his promise to provide a savior for his people. But something reaaallllyyyy cool about the OT law? It was NOT a burden on the people, it was God’s miraculous GRACE! In other places in the Ancient Near East, they had ideas about inconsistent and selfish gods. They worshiped all different gods for all different things, and no one was ever clear on what they should do or who was in charge. Secondly, the Israelites had legit just been slaves for a good minute. When they left Egypt, they had NO IDEA how to be a free nation of people who followed the Lord. With the OT law given at Mount Sinai in Exodus/Leviticus, God graced the people with clear guidelines on how to live. The law was a major blessing. 

So let’s think about this gracious law for a second (Look at Exodus 24-end and Leviticus): 

1. The OT law is a part of a bigger picture - The COVENANT! Yay covenant! The law is part of the agreement that Israel and God follow: king and his nation in relationship with each other through covenantal promises. If Israel promises to keep the law, God gives them the land of Canaan, many children to create a large nation, and blesses the world through them. Spoiler alert: Israel definitely fails, and God is definitely faithful anyway. Spoiler Alert #2: We get to be under a new covenant! A covenant created with the blood of Christ that give us life. 

2. Why the sacrifices? Well, the wages of sin is death. We all pretty much got that one, right? Sacrifices TAKE THE PLACE of the sinner for the sin and cover them in eyes of the Lord so they can continue to be in relationship with a holy God, despite still being sinful as humans in a fallen world. In the OT, they sacrificed animals for unintentional sins and guilt, but more was required- we needed a sacrifice for sin itself, even when intentional. In short, we needed a lamb of God to atone for us. We needed a savior to die. 

So how do those things relate to the gospel? Well look at words from Hebrews 9- it explains everything a lot better than I ever could. 

“13 For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, 14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

15 Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant. 16 For where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established.17 For a will takes effect only at death, since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive. 18 Therefore not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood. 19 For when every commandment of the law had been declared by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people,20 saying, “This is the blood of the covenant that God commanded for you.” 21 And in the same way he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship. 22 Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.

.... But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.27 And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,28 so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.” 

-31Women (Beth) 

It’s time to go back to the basics. 

If my Sunday school teacher had asked me to tell them the gospel as a 6 yr old, I probably could have done it- and that would’ve been great... expect that for a long time I pretty much stayed right there. I could tell you the gospel, but if you asked me why Christ had to die, why it was essential that he rose again, or where the gospel really began all the way back in Genesis, I was stumped. It’s great to have Bible studies that go deeply into specific topics or certain books, those types of studies are essential to discipleship and spiritual growth, but if you don’t have a strong foundation in your understanding of the gospel, you are hopelessly lost. 

The gospel is the cornerstone of our faith; Without it all the religion in the world means nothing. Yet, do we even understand what we believe when we recite the gospel to each other? 

What about every other part of Christianity that follows? Do we understand why we go to church read the Bible, pray, go on mission trips, help the poor, or anything else we are called to do as Christians? When Christianity becomes cultural, it can be easy for us to go through the motions of doing all the outward signs of Christianity that everyone else expects, without understanding their significance, or experiencing these things in their fullness. 

When we try to build on our faith without a solid foundation in the Lord and His Word, we are easily broken down by the attacks of our enemy and the distractions of the world. As soon as we face hardship, we begin to think that religion is fake, petty, and naive. Look at the parable that Jesus told in Matthew 13 of a farmer (that is God) sowing seeds (the gospel) into different types of soil (our response to God’s words). Jesus said, “Some [seed] fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root.” That is what happens when we don’t take time to create a foundation in why we believe what we do. We are beat down by troubles that come. Yet, hope is not lost. “But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” We can truly grow in our faith and our relationship with God when we have a foundation to build on, that means hearing AND understanding. 

So we’re starting a series on the wait, why? moments of Christianity- starting with the gospel, because we’ve gotta have a foundation. 

“In the beginning, God...” 

Where do you begin your telling of the gospel? 

The other day, I was taught how to do the “Romans Road,” a list of verses that help you evangelize and explain the gospel through verses in Romans. While this is a great strategy that can be useful, I respectfully disagree with the choice of starting verse: Romans 3:32 - “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” 

If we start our gospel story in Genesis 3 with the sin of Adam and Eve, we begin with broken relationships and a fallen world, forgetting that our true identity lies in Genesis 1 with “In the beginning, God created.” We were created by God to be in perfect relationship with Him and to live in perfect relationships with each other. We have to remember that the reason we should hate sin so much is that we were not created to be living in it. We should grieve over our fallen world because it was not created to be that way. Sin is the destruction of a world that was created good. 

Here’s what happens when we start the gospel with “The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth...” (Genesis 6) rather than “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (Genesis 1): 

1. We lose the meaning behind “Savior.” If the world was always bad, and we were born in sin, what exactly do we need saving from? The reason we need a savior at all is that the Creator God wanted to restore the relationship that was broken and redeem the identity that was lost.

2. We fail to comprehend why Christ would die at all. The biggest question we should be asking ourselves in response to the gospel is “Why would he do that if we didn’t do anything to deserve it? Why does God love us so much?” It doesn’t make sense why God would love us if we don’t understand that he created us in his image. 

3. We put our focus on worldly things instead of eternal things. Sin is temporary, Christ has overcome. We need to start with the explanation of what the world truly is, because our fallen world is not going to last forever. Our focus is not on the sin that we want to escape from, but rather the God we want to run to. 

4. We do not fully understand the end of the story without its true beginning. Without knowing “and God saw that it was good,” (Genesis 1) we don’t understand “Behold I am coming soon” (Revelation 22). We know that Jesus will come again and create the new heavens and new earth as it was always meant to be, because we understand that God is Creator. 

But if we’re going to sum up one reason to remember Genesis one, it’s this: 

Before there was sin, there was God. 

“In the beginning, God...” 

We all know that there’s bad things in our world. That’s pretty much an uncontested truth no matter who you are. Bad things happen. The part we disagree on across religious lines is why? Why do bad things happen? Why and how did sin become a part of lives? These questions are the second step in the gospel story, Creation —> Fall, Perfection —> Brokenness, Holy —> Sinful.

Our story of a sinful world with broken people begins in Genesis 2 with a tree and a choice. “The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”  God placed two trees right in the middle of the garden of Eden to remind his creation that he was at the center. With their hearts and minds set on the Lord as the center of their lives, Adam and Eve would be secure in holiness.

Yet they had a choice. God gave them free will to choose to follow his commands. “But wait! Couldn’t God have forced them not to eat of the tree? Couldn’t he have not given them that option?” Well, yes. But God wanted more than robots. He wanted us - created beings in his image with the ability to have a real and meaningful relationship with him. How meaningful is a relationship with a robot? We have free will so that we can fully image God and know him to a fuller extent. Here’s the thing to remember about this fact- God did not create sin. Giving us a choice does not mean he failed on the job, created evil, or was defeated by evil. God is holy. God does not tolerate sin.

With that in mind, let’s continue the story. The first thing that happens in Genesis 3 is that the woman (not yet named Eve) and the serpent twist God’s Words through questioning, diminishing, and exaggerating. First, the serpent exaggerates God’s command: “You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?”  Next, the woman also exaggerates God’s command although she corrects the serpent at first: “you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.” Eve exaggerates God’s commands (God only said not to EAT of the tree, not to avoid touching it), thereby allowing the temptation to continue. Then the serpent diminishes God’s word instead, knowing that Eve is beginning to question the accuracy of her God’s words: “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” The tricky serpent knows about the best lies- the ones that are almost true. Would the woman and man become like God, knowing good and evil? In a way, yes they did - they came to know evil. Did they die? Not immediately. At this point Adam saw his wife eat, and instead of protecting her or standing up for Truth, he saw that she had more knowledge and did not immediately die (although she did surely die), which convinced him to also take and eat. Thus we had the first sin.

Here’s the thing about the first sin- it wasn’t about eating fruit. There may be 10 commandments to keep, but there is really only one sin in the world. It was the sin that the woman and the man in the garden committed, and it the one we still commit today: Ourselves > God. All other specifics fit into this one sin- we put ourselves (the creation) over God (the creator).

So why do bad things happen? Because we no longer have God at the center of our garden, we put ourselves there instead.

But brothers and sisters here is our hope - our sin story may have begun in Genesis 3, but so does our salvation story. Genesis 3:15 says “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.”  This is the first prophecy of the Bible. Sin entered the world, but it did not overcome. God was not surprised by the choice made. God is provider. God is deliver. God is faithful even when we are not. God always keeps his promises. God had a plan all along to redeem his people and restore them to himself. 

And Adam believed. He named his wife Eve, “the mother of all the living,” because believed the promise of the Lord that through Eve, a child would come to bring life.