Waiting for the Lord
Posted on: December 15, 2014
- In: Faith | Seasons of the Church Year
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Our Advent ring and candles
Walking through Advent, we know what we’re waiting for: the day we celebrate the birth of Jesus.
But imagine God’s people in the days before Jesus came to live among us—and even after that. They were waiting for the Messiah, but the deliverer they had in mind was very different from Jesus.
The people expected to be liberated from Roman rule, and after they witnessed the miraculous feeding of the five thousand, they wanted to “take him by force to make him king” (John 6:15*).
Yet Jesus’ words at the Sermon on the Mount (see Matthew 5 to 7) and the words of the prophet Isaiah that he read in the temple (Luke 4:18) revealed the kind of deliverer and King he would be:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”
We know that “God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:17). We know that Jesus came as a baby, born to die to deliver us from our sins. “Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of our religion,” as the apostle Paul wrote in 1 Timothy 3:16.
As we look forward to celebrating the birth of Jesus, I pray that we would think of the Christmas story not only as a familiar one, but also as a wonderful and awesome gift from God that we should anticipate receiving.
You who fear the Lord, trust in him, and your reward will not fail;
you who fear the Lord, hope for good things, for everlasting joy and mercy.
You who fear the Lord, love him, and your hearts will be made radiant.
~ Sirach 2:8-9
(*Scripture quotes and reference taken from the Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version, Second Catholic Edition.)
