My family celebrated Advent with our own little family traditions every year. Every night for dinner in the month of December we'd play a Christmas CD from our collection, light a purple or pink Advent candle representing each week of Advent, and then listened to my dad read a little devotional about some aspect of your typical Christian Christmas story - something about Mary and Joseph, or the angels, or the shepherds, etc. It was probably our most consistent family tradition and was always one of my favorites as it helped me anticipate the coming of Christ by focusing on the true meaning of Christmas beyond the presents and cards and such.
But this year, I've begun to see how the season of Advent is so much more than the star of Bethlehem, King Herod, the wise men, and baby Jesus in a manger.
The wheels started turning when the pastor of my church here in Rochester off-handedly shared during a conversation around Advent in adult Christian Ed that a typical sermon topic preachers would speak on for the first week of Advent would be an eschatological message.
I did a double-take because that was certainly not true of my experience thus far. A message on the end times during Advent? It made no sense to me. But as our church was finishing up the book of 2 Kings, the more we started to connect the dots, and the more I started to understand.
Our church spent the whole year going through 1 & 2 Kings. One of the things I like and appreciate about our church is the approach of how we journey through the Bible. On a typical Sunday after worship service, we'll spend an hour (called Adult Christian Ed) digging into next week's passage and discussing our observations and questions as a group. At the end of Christian Ed, our pastor encourages us to use that same passage we just discussed in our devotional time throughout the week - reading through it several more times, memorizing a verse or two, praying through it, etc., so that we can go deeper into the passage and see what God may bring to the surface for us as individuals. Then our pastor preaches on the passage the following Sunday.
So as you can imagine, we've spent a whole lot of time learning about the many kings of Israel and Judah, and by connecting one passage after another, I've gained a broader understanding of the history, the decisions kings made, the circumstances around those decisions, the consequences of their leadership, and the people with whom God made covenant promises. We've made connections to the books of the prophets of their time, as well as the New Testament, tried to understand how the people receiving these words at the time would hear them, and scratched the surface of how these things could possibly tie to us today.
Obviously, to go into all the things I've been learning, it would take a lot more than one blog post. So I'll just share a little bit about the end of 2 Kings: everything is a mess. The northern kingdom has already fallen, and people of the southern kingdom of Judah finally collapse under the Babylonian rule or flee to Egypt - the land God had promised to His people seems to be lost forever, and God does not even make an appearance in the passage. There's this sense of great depression, loss, disappointment, and sadness.
But, at the same time, it's not exactly where 2 Kings ends. In the midst of death and destruction, it ends with the release and survival of Jehoiachin, previous King of Judah. But he's not just any king - he carries on the line of King David, the same line from which Jesus is eventually born many years later.
Making some of those connections have given me a deeper understanding of the season of Advent. Sure, Mary and Joseph's stories are important, of course, but the anticipation of the coming of Jesus doesn't stem out of this great period of happiness or assurance. Instead, Advent is during a great period of darkness, silence, and uncertainty; a season of desperately holding on to the Hope that is to come when it seems easier to give in to hopelessness.
But, at the same time, it's not exactly where 2 Kings ends. In the midst of death and destruction, it ends with the release and survival of Jehoiachin, previous King of Judah. But he's not just any king - he carries on the line of King David, the same line from which Jesus is eventually born many years later.
Making some of those connections have given me a deeper understanding of the season of Advent. Sure, Mary and Joseph's stories are important, of course, but the anticipation of the coming of Jesus doesn't stem out of this great period of happiness or assurance. Instead, Advent is during a great period of darkness, silence, and uncertainty; a season of desperately holding on to the Hope that is to come when it seems easier to give in to hopelessness.
More on this in another post.
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