THE HOPE OF HIS COMING

Titus 2:13,14- teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.

For those of you who know me you know I am not a high church traditional guy. As a matter of fact I would consider myself (if we are throwing around labels) old school Pentecostal. With that being said over the last few years I have been pondering the church tradition of celebrating Advent. I guess I can get behind that because I really love Christmas and love celebrating the greatest event in all history, the day God Himself became a man. So what is Advent anyway? Well the word advent means to wait. We are awaiting that glorious day when all creation stops and recognizes that in the City of David, Bethlehem, 2025 years ago the Lord was born of a virgin and became part of the human race. He became one of us to die a sacrificial death for our sins. In one sense all of the earth celebrates Advent even if they don’t call it that. We enter into this season at about Thanksgiving time and as the great day draws near the joyful anticipation intensifies. The whole world begins to wait in expectation of that great day. So we are all waiting in hope. Actually if we are honest, we are all waiting for the Second Advent of Jesus. We are waiting in hope of eternal life that we will step into on that great day.

One of the great seasons we all experienced as a child was waiting for Christmas Day. We would have a thousand conversations about what we were going to get that year and as the day got closer the more excited we all got. I would get so ramped up that there was no way I could sleep when Christmas Eve finally arrived.

In light of all of that, we Christians are in the midst of the waiting on the Second Advent of our Lord. Just as there was a number of people awaiting the appearing of the Messiah at the time of His birth, there is a growing number of people looking for the return of Jesus Christ today. This is our blessed hope – this is our true advent.