Hillsborough Reformed Church at Millstone
Advent I November 28, 2004 Is. 2:1-5, Mt. 24:36-44
¡§Getting Ready¡¨
I was in Kmart yesterday and was pleased to see a giant heap of boxes of candy canes. I was pleased because I like to have a box of them on hand in my study for when people come to see me and bring their children. I was pleased because I often forget to buy them but in this case there was a giant display right near the check out. I was also pleased because they were only 99 cents a box!
I guess I¡¦m ready for Christmas now! Just kidding. I¡¦m not that much of a Scrooge.
But there is a lot ahead. Christmas cards, special services and activities, purchasing gifts, getting a tree. There is lots ahead for all of us ¡V baking, mailing, decorating. The pre-Christmas season is a time of getting ready. Advent is a time of getting ready in our hearts and minds for the birth of Jesus.
This morning I¡¦d like to reflect a little on someone else¡¦s preparations. God had to get ready for Christmas too, long ago.
The first thing God did to get ready was to promise a Messiah. God¡¦s Messiah would be a perfect king ¡V one who would rule with justice and equity. This ruler would bring peace. This ruler would make life the very best it could be.
These preparations took God a very, very long time. God made his people wait. I¡¦m not sure why, but God had his reasons. The people of Israel lived under foreign domination for century after century, waiting and waiting for the Messiah. Waiting so long generation after generation that many people must have wondered if God would ever send the Messiah.
Why did God wait so long? We don¡¦t know, but we can believe there is a good reason. Sometimes life is like that. Sometimes a single woman will wonder if she will ever find her true love. Then one day he comes along and she knows he was worth waiting for. Earning a degree can be tough. It costs money and takes so much work and maybe sometimes a student might ask if its worth it. But when he has the job that gives him fulfillment and joy, he knows the wait was worth it.
God had to wait till his people were ready. It was an odd time, really. It was a time when they were hopelessly under Rome¡¦s domination, when religion had been stale and distant from the average person and when there seemed no hope for the future at all. Then God sent his Messiah.
The Bible says that God sent Jesus in the fullness of time. Its as if the world was ripe for it just then. Often we pray that someone we care about or work with will accept Jesus Christ into their lives. We witness to them, but they reject it. For some reason, they are just not ripe. But then often the moment comes. It is the fullness of time for that person and they meet Jesus Christ and their lives are changed forever.
The Bible says, ¡§But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that they might receive adoption as children (Gal. 4:4).¡¨ The people expected to be delivered from Roman domination. But that would come much later. No earthly state endures forever. Only God¡¦s kingdom does. There was something more important that had to be done, delivery to the freedom of the grace of the love of God. Deliverance from sin to eternal life. When the time was ripe for that, God did that for his people in Jesus Christ.
And finally, God got ready by sending a Messiah of promise. Jesus was of the house and lineage of David. God promised that the Messiah would be a descendant of David, and so we are told in Matthew¡¦s gospel that Joseph, Jesus¡¦ father was a descendant of David.
So what does all of this mean to us, this business of God getting ready two thousand years ago? It means that God keeps his promises and will always deliver his people.
That means no matter what is going on in your life, God has a future for you and is holding you tightly ¡V so tightly that nothing can do you in. In tough times, you can withstand anything because God is fulfilling his promise to you. In the good times, you can know that God is with you as you walk with Jesus Christ.
Above all, that God got ready so long ago and fulfilled his promises means to you the most important thing in your life is your walk with Jesus Christ. When God sent the Messiah 2,000 years ago, things looked pretty bad. In fact, most of us will never live in circumstances anything like what it was like for God¡¦s people back then. But God showed that Roman power didn¡¦t matter. God showed that peoples¡¦ circumstances didn¡¦t matter. God showed that even the Temple religion which seemed so far beyond the average person was not what ultimately mattered. God¡¦s fulfillment of his promise to send the Messiah mattered. And that is what matters to you and to me this Advent 2004.
The promise of the Bible is that God is getting ready to do something absolutely amazing for you and for me. When God sent Jesus, no one, and I mean no one, would have imagined this is what he would do. That God would have sent a warrior king to deliver the people? Yes! That God would have sent a brilliant leader to get them out from under Rome? Yes! That he would send an infant son to a Galilean carpenter and his wife and that would forever change the universe? No! No one would have ever foreseen that! And so I cannot tell you what God will do in the future for you. But this we know for sure. It will be amazing. And we will sing God¡¦s praise for it forever.
God is also getting you ready, slowly but surely preparing you for your new life.
The reading from Isaiah tells us some important things about this future. God will be exalted and all in the world will be drawn to him. The ways of war and injustice will be over and done with forever. Men shall beat their swords into plowshares. Because of what is coming, today we should be walking together in the light of the Lord.
So this Advent as we remember how God got ready to send the Messiah, let us look with expectation how God is getting us ready today and let us pray and be open to what we are becoming in Jesus Christ.
Fred D. Mueller
Isaiah 2
1The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.
2 In days to come
the mountain of the LORD¡¦S house
shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
and shall be raised above the hills;
all the nations shall stream to it.
3 Many peoples shall come and say,
¡§Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,
to the house of the God of Jacob;
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths.¡¨
For out of Zion shall go forth instruction,
and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
4 He shall judge between the nations,
and shall arbitrate for many peoples;
they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more.
Judgment Pronounced on Arrogance
5 O house of Jacob,
come, let us walk
in the light of the LORD!
The Necessity for Watchfulness
Matthew 24:36¡§But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son,„T but only the Father. 37For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 38For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, 39and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man. 40Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. 41Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. 42Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day„T your Lord is coming. 43But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. 44Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.
