Advent|Dec.16th ~Celebrating our Rescuer's Coming!

Sarah & I would like to share with you one of our "first" traditions (if we can call it a tradition yet). We decided to get an Advent calendar for our Christmas season! 1. Because I don't remember the last time I ever went through an Advent calendar 2. Because it's cool and we live in Seattle 3. Because it's biblical (thought I should add this one). We are celebrating Advent, because the word means "coming," and reminds Sarah & I of the best "coming" there ever was! The arrival of our Rescuer, Jesus Christ!

Day 16! December 16th! 

9 more days till Christmas!

What a great day Sarah and I had with our church today. The preaching made me want to keep hearing more and more of the Gospel and the good news contained in the Gospel. Our pastor spoke on family, and how the Gospel relates to parenting, and to the individual roles within the family: husband, wife, kids.

He highlighted that parenting can easily lean toward whatever the kid wants, or whatever the parents want, but both can fail. It's really about centering the life of the family around what God wants :-) It was so good!

As Sarah and I read through Luke 2:27-35, verses 27-31 stood out as key verses for the both of us.

"And he (Simeon) came in the Spirit into the temple, and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for Him according to the custom of the Law, he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said, 'Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen Your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples...'"

What is so amazing about the coming of Jesus and His birth is that God chose to come for us! Jesus, Son of God, humbled Himself from His reign in heaven and came down in the form of a man, even a lowly baby. He was fully God and fully man, subjecting himself to the laws of the land. The verses above show us these things.

Mary and Joseph bring their new baby to the temple to be dedicated to the Lord. Here was Jesus, Son of God, in the humble body of a baby. What a surprise this family was in for! Mary and Joseph didn't know he would one day resurrect dead men, create food from nothing, calm the stormy seas. They didn't know he would walk on water, heal diseases, make the lame walk. They didn't know he was born to die on a cross for his own parents' sins. They probably had no idea who they were holding in their hands. 

But Simeon gave them a vision of it. This baby was "God's salvation," and God had prepared Him for His rescue mission. Prepared to be born a man, to live righteously as a man, and to die as a man, fulfilling the holy wrath of God against sin. The big picture of it all was that Jesus was born to die. It's a more solemn understanding of Jesus' reason and purpose for coming to earth, but it is also the best thing about Jesus' birth. The only one who could save us, God Himself, was here! Our Rescuer had come!

One of my favorite bands, Shane and Shane have sung about this truth, and I figure I would share it with you HERE. 

"...I came that they may have life and have it abundantly." John 10:10