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By Larry Taylor, Ph.D., President & CEO

This month, Christians all over the world are celebrating Advent by reflecting on the arrival of Jesus. It is a time for us to focus on hope, peace, love, and joy. Advent takes on a deeper meaning when we choose joy and hope despite our circumstances. Most of us struggle with getting caught up in the busyness of the Christmas season, but if we let it, the Advent calendar can bring order and help us slow down. Advent allows us to pause and reflect so that we can remember the essential characteristics of Christ. Today, I want to reflect on some of these characteristics. 

Every year during Advent, we are reminded of God’s motive for the birth of Christ. It’s not just a reminder of His birth but also of God’s motive in sending Him. As author and pastor Ronnie Martin says, it is a universe-sized love. “Jesus didn’t merely lay out the blueprints for God’s redemption; he also included God’s motivation: love. This is the thrill of hope that reemerges in our hearts every year at Advent, as we imagine the unfathomable volume of God’s love for us in the person and work of Jesus Christ.”

We are also reminded of the foretaste of what is to come—the return of Jesus and His reign. Author Alexis Ragan says, “The intersection of Luke 2 and Revelation 19 renders images of Christ exalted first as a child on earth and then passionately praised and hailed as King of Kings in heaven. As we celebrate Advent, we are invited to make room for a holy observation and take time to contemplate the wonder of His arrival alongside the glory of eternal reign, participating in the same symphony of salvation.”

By observing Advent, we are also motivated to become more realistic about who we are and the importance of our involvement in the Christian life. This is humbling. I am not talking about the type of involvement that adds extra busyness. I am talking about getting more caught up in the meaning and possibilities of life within a Christian community and the proper perspective of both who I am as Christ’s child and, more importantly, who I am not. Thus, we are preparing not only for Christmas but also for Christ's second coming. 

Author Laura Wifler calls this “the goodness of growing smaller.” John the Baptist’s followers did not like that everyone was going to Jesus to be baptized, but he showed them the beauty of the gospel paradox. His “popularity was ending. His success fading. His influence declining. The Christian life is about losing to find. Giving to gain. Dying to live.”

Advent restores our vision of our true identity. By focusing on the two comings of Christ, the Advent season reminds us that one cannot exist without the other. Eternity is definitely a joy-filled goal, but it is also present now. I like how author Elizabeth Woodson says it: “We forget we belong to God.” She goes on to say, “Peter’s words were written to Gentile Christians living as ‘foreigners and exiles’ in the Roman Empire. They were noncitizens or temporary residents in a world that highly valued citizenship in its social hierarchy. It was also a time when Rome’s tolerance for religious freedom was diminishing. Peter was writing to marginalized and persecuted Christians, suffering for their allegiance to King Jesus… It’s a reminder that God, not people, determined their true identity. Peter uses four phrases to describe their identity in Christ: a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, and God’s special possession.” It is a time to contemplate where our true identity comes from.

Advent can help us remember that God’s plans are usually different from the world’s plans. Ronnie Martin calls it “God’s astonishing announcement scheme.” He summarizes it this way: “The Lord chose an unsuspecting group of shepherds to introduce good news of great joy that will be for all people. In God’s transcendent economy, lowliness is how he wants us to understand godliness, to understand his Son… He wants our hearts to beat with a pulse that is continuously less in sync with the rhythms of the world.”

Finally, Advent increases our hope. This is done not only by seeing Him as a future goal but also by seeing Him as someone we can encounter today. Christian hope says life is not fleeting but rather enduring because it is united to Jesus’s own life. Advent is the training ground of hope—recognizing God’s presence as saving grace—in the face of whatever is fleeting.

Jesus’s presence among us will be revealed in all its fullness—a presence that will never end, a presence that will perfect and complete our community. The season of Advent brings us the magnificent vision of life and hope for the future given to us by Christ. 

“The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through Him, the world did not recognize Him. He came to that which was His own, but His own did not receive Him. Yet to all who did receive Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”  –John 1:9–14