December 2008 Article: Advent 2008

Remembering, Waiting, Imagining, Hoping

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God. ~John 1.1,2

What in the world am I going to do? I mean there is no way this is possible. How can she be, pregnant? We are not even married yet, there is no way that this can be happening to me.

There is nothing else for me to do. I mean, what will this say about me as a person and more importantly, what will it say about her? I don’t want to disgrace her. Then that is what I shall do, I will pack my things and leave. It is nothing against her but I know these circumstances, nothing good can come from this.

It is midnight, I suppose I should sleep a bit before I start packing my things and leave in the middle of the night.

“Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid…” said the stranger
What do you mean do not be afraid? What are you? Who are you? Why are you here? Please, don’t hurt me; I’m just a poor carpenter, in this peasant style home. What I am saying then is I have no money for you to take, so please leave me alone!

“No no, Joseph you got me all wrong. You see I am an angel of the Lord and I am hear to tell you this, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins,” the Angel said before it slipped away.

Joseph then fell asleep again. Awaking only to scratch his head and wonder what happened was a dream or if it was real. After thinking about it, he decided to do what the angel of the Lord told him to do. Together, Joseph and Mary welcomed a baby boy into the world and named him Jesus.

Often times we hear a lot about Mary and the pressures it must have been upon this young teenage girl. Yet I want us to focus on Joseph. Imagine what he must have felt like discovering his wife was pregnant with someone else’s child. Then after constructing a plan to get the heck out of dodge, have it picked a part by an angel. Only then to be left waking up scratching his head trying to remember what just happened. Reading on in the story, we see that King Herod had a plot to kill all infants, think about Joseph, Mary and Jesus waiting for the right time to escape. Finally, after the dust has settled, Joseph and Mary breathe a little bit and I can bet you, they were hoping the best for this child.

Remembering. Waiting. Imagining. Hoping. That is what Advent is all about. This is the season we are in friends. We find ourselves remembering where it was we just came from, waiting for this next year to begin, imagining what it will entail and then hoping for the year to be a great one!

This Advent let us together remember God’s promises to us as a people. Through this let’s begin discussion Christ’s return and what that will entail for us. Clinging tightly to the promises that God made through Christ, lets imagine what it would be like if we begin to live out the world that God had dreamed of. Together then we can begin to hope for a new world, become a picture of the Christ-life for the world and bring the Kingdom of Heaven to this place which is broken and is waiting for a healing.

What are God’s promises to us? What has God promised to his people? As we read these stories of Jesus’ birth and how God became flesh through Christ, let us engage in the reality that God did not die when Christ was crucified, but God is still alive and that God had come and that God is coming still! Let’s remember this, wait for Christ’s coming again, imagining what this will look like and then hope for the renewal God’s creation and for the life of the world to come.

Friends, this Advent season let us live in hope, as we remember God’s love for us, let us imagine what some may say is impossible such as peace and love for all and then let us do the good work of God, waiting for the moment when we will encounter Christ and his return! This is when God came to us. This is when we remember that God is coming to us again!

O God, fill us with a holy longing for the coming of your Son, Jesus, to brighten our dark and dreary world.

(Remembering, waiting, imagining, and hoping is the theme for FPC Owensboro this Advent season. Highlighted words is to recognize where it comes from, Jonathan E. Carroll.)