December 2024

“This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.  In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.  These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.  Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.  Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow.  It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things.” (1 Peter 10:4b-12).

It’s December!  It’s always crazy to me how quickly it seems that the year flies by; it’s so hard to believe that my family and I have been in North Carolina for a little over 7 months already.  This month is always an exciting time because, when the calendar turns to December, it means that Thanksgiving has come and gone and now the Christmas season can get into full swing.  I know at my house, Karla and the kids are always ready to start decorating the house for Christmas before we have even finished digesting our turkey!

In churches across the world, the Christmas season that begins on December 1 is known as Advent.  Almost every church has special celebrations and observances to commemorate the Advent season, but I am willing to bet that many church members do not actually know what Advent is, or why we celebrate it.

Advent is a season of anticipation and rejoicing for the coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ; not just His coming into the world in that stable in the Middle East some 2000 years ago, but His return to the world that has yet to occur.  The word “Advent” itself comes from the Latin word adventus, which means “coming;” and adventus itself is a transliteration of the Greek word parousia, which means “presence after absence” or “arrival.”  The word parousia is used throughout the New Testament to refer to the second coming of Jesus.

The celebration of the season of Advent links the situation of the church of Jesus Christ to the people of Israel when they were in exile in Babylon.  While they were away from their homeland, God’s people looked back to the time that God brought them out of exile and slavery in Egypt to give them hope that God would act for them once again and bring them out of Babylon and back to the Promised Land.  In the same way, the church of Jesus Christ in the present age, during the Advent season, looks back to celebrate Jesus’ first coming as a way to give us hope in the fact that He will return for us and usher in His kingdom in the New Heavens and the New Earth.

My prayer for each one of us this holiday season is that even during the hustle and bustle of decorating, buying presents, going to Christmas parties, and everything else that goes along with the holidays, we will all take the time to slow down and remember what Christ has already done, and is going to do, for us.  Christ came into this world to pay the penalty for our sins that we could never pay on our own; He came into this world to conquer sin and death and purchase our inheritance, the gift of eternal life.  But, not only has He already come into the world for this purpose, He has promised that He is going to return to fully and finally establish His reign and His rule and to bring us our full inheritance as joint heirs with Him to eternity.  And that, brothers and sisters, more than presents, Christmas trees, eggnog, or Santa Claus is most certainly a reason to celebrate during the month of December!

May the blessings of the Father and the peace of the Son be with you,

Pastor Keith