Actually, He is coming again. He already came the first time as a baby born in a manger in Bethlehem. The angels announced His birth to shepherds, and wise men from the East traveled far to pay their homage and give Him gifts.
Advent is a season of repentance as we wait for the coming of our King.
The first Advent was in preparation for the Incarnation – the divine taking on human flesh. In Bethlehem that first Christmas Day, God clothed Himself in flesh and started to live among us.
Philippians 2 tells us Jesus left the privileges of being God to be human like us. He came to earth in what is effectively a divine rescue mission to save mankind from eternal damnation.
In John 6, Jesus said He came to do the will of the Father. And His mission is to call people to faith and to raise them up at the last day. God has this revolutionary plan to rescue man with no less than His Son entrusted to carry this out.
A Christmas carol captures what the mission was all about: “God rest ye merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay… For Jesus Christ, our Savior was born on Christmas Day… To save us all from Satan’s powers when we were gone astray… Glad tidings of comfort and joy, Comfort and joy, Glad tidings of comfort and joy.”
The first coming of Christ is to tell the world the good news of salvation. Christ came knowing His mission entails making the ultimate sacrifice on the Cross to pay the price for our salvation. Then he rose from the dead and promised to come again.
Lee Strobel, a former atheist, aptly observed in his Christmas message at Saddleback Church: the ultimate purpose of Christmas is Easter.
Now we await His return. The Second Advent is much different from the first.
Christianity Today writer, Rachel Gilson, explains why we must now “begin at the end. Not at the manger. Not with the Magi offering gifts of worship or the shepherds rejoicing in wonder. Not with Mary’s visit to Elizabeth or Joseph’s angelic dream.
“We begin not with Christ’s First Advent, but with his Second...
“It’s not a tame, pleasant, ‘they all lived happily ever after’ ending. It’s beautiful and fearful, awesome and terrifying. It’s an ending that expands far beyond the limits of our human comprehension: He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.”
Ms. Gilson continues to explain that this second Advent “shocks us out of our sentimentality about Christmas, inviting us into the far grander and more expansive story of the cosmos, in which the incarnate God who was laid in a manger and went to the cross will one day sit on the throne, and every knee will bow and every tongue confess he is Lord (Phil. 2:6–11)...
“The Second Advent makes plain that to follow Jesus means… We respond to Christ’s promised return – ’the blessed hope’—with a longing and anticipation that shapes our lives in the here and now, as we say ‘No’ to the temptations of sin and live as people who are ‘eager to do what is good’” (Titus 2:11–14).”
With this perspective, “we can rightly approach the manger—for we know that there, wrapped in swaddling clothes, is the Savior whose glorious return is indeed our blessed hope, our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.”
Today we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ that started the process of our redemption.
We are in the Second Advent. It is really ultimately about His second coming. Let us not try to time our repentance, our faith, our works to coincide with His return for we don’t know the day or the hour. We should be ready to meet Him anytime. And when He comes again, we will see and experience the consummation of the gospel story.
Matthew 13: 49-50 describes that day: “This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
1Tessalonians 8-10 tells us how to comport ourselves while waiting: “since we belong to the day, let us be sober, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet. For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him.”
Let us keep our eyes on God’s promise in Revelation 21:3 - “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.”
This Christmas, let us prepare ourselves to give our King a proper welcome. Make sure there is a room for Him in the inn of our hearts.
Merry Christmas to everyone.
Boo Chanco’s email address is bchanco@gmail.com Follow him on Twitter @boochanco