For the last four weeks, the sermons have had to do with Advent, a time set aside for the anticipation of Christmas. The first week's topic was "Longing." The text was Psalm 40 where the psalmist cries out, "How long O Lord?" It is an acknowledgement that all is just not right with the world and in our hearts and the desire for them to be made right. The second week was about the "Promise" from God to reweave the fabric of society, to make all things right, to put creation back as it should be, to restore the relationship with the people He created. The third week discussed the "Arrival" of the King to begin to fulfill the promise. It was the inauguration of His kingdom, the setting in motion to make all things right, beginning with the hearts of man. Jesus was sent by God the Father as God the Son, from heaven, to walk with us as humans, to weep with us, full of sorrow because of our sorrow and our sin. He took this burden on Himself, dying in our place, to make us whole and make things right with us in relation to God. We don't have to prove ourselves or do things to measure up to Him. There is no way we could. He has done it for us. We are covered by His blood alone.
So, now we are up to the fourth week, "Anticipation." It is the idea that Christ will come to finish His work. He has been working, is working and will complete His work on the judgment day. His kingdom was inaugurated when he arrived on earth 2000 years ago; He will return to consummate His Kingdom and to have His day of reckoning for all that is not and has not been right. He will make all things right! So, though we may have looked on the Day of the Lord with fear, if we are followers of Jesus, living a life of repentance, then we have nothing to fear. It should be looked to as a day of rejoicing because it will be the completion of all that God has done to make things right that have been messed up by us. What hope is there in Christmas and in longing and the promise from God if there is no final reckoning to deal decisively with all the injustice in the world? Without the Day of the Lord, there is not climax to the plot, no resolution to the storyline. This is the exclamation point at the end of the entirety of the gospel story.
So how does this affect our lives? This anticipation for the consummation of the Kingdom should give us a deep passion for the Lord! A diligence, a focus, a clarity of purpose to set our hearts on the holiness of God, to let our lives be a reflection of that and to speak the whole gospel story. It should resize us so that God is the main character, not us. It should encourage us to examine our lives daily and live with a repentant heart, not to perform for Him but because He has performed and finished the work for us.
I've never much thought about the Day of the Lord and am a complete skeptic with regard to so many people trying to predict when the end will be and that we live in end times. As a student of history, I've studied how bad all of history has been. The things that started out good get twisted. Our present age is not the inventor of evil. It has ebbed and flowed throughout history, hidden for a time but still working and thoroughly heinous and obvious at times. Every generation thinks they are living in the end times. However, in light of certain things in our own lives, I've been confronted personally with the fact that all is really just not right with the world, our country, our laws, etc. No government is perfect, nothing is. We expect things to work with swift justice and they simply don't. It has forced me to long for the day when all of this mess will be made right forever, when there will be no more orphans and no more fight for them and no more hunger and starvation and disease and extreme poverty and slavery and human trafficking. This anticipation should wake us up to these things, all the injustice and wrong in the world, and to cry out to the Lord to see and hear and work and to seek to help soften the blows of our fallen world but with realization that only God will finally put an end to it all, that we are not the saviors to end all of this, it is not our burden to carry. Christ, the Holy Child, is the Savior and Coming, Conquering, Victorious King.
Come, Lord Jesus Come!!!
1 comment:
Amen Mels. Very well written. Love you. Sharl
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