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Advent

Advent 4: Love – 2024

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Horsham December 2024

The traditional theme for this fourth week of Advent is ‘love’.

I’m wondering whether ‘love’ may be one of the most confusing words in the English language. I love my wife. I love my children and my Grandson. All ok so far. I love sitting on a beach watching a beautiful sunset and the view from the top of the hill down the road. That all makes sense. I love my apartment and I love the Christmas decorations in the town Square. These are all valid uses of the verb ‘to love’ in contemporary usage in the UK. I love paella and my wife’s cheese pie (she makes a very good cheese pie). You might love your car or your phone. But now there’s a hint of a problem. My love for my wife (we have been together since we were teens) is surely very different from your love of your iPhone? Can we really be talking about the same thing?

But of course as native English speakers our culture resolves the problem, because we all sort of know what we mean. We can see a difference. We’ve sort of learned a scale – a continuum if you like – which allows us to use the same word in many different situations and mean something similar, but not the same. That sense of continuum helps us to understand what each other means. It’s as if we sub consciously pick up the word love, look at it in the context of our conversation, and get a good idea what we mean. Most of the time, we get it right.

You see, I can use the word love when I mean like. I can use the word love when I mean sex. It can mean affection. It can mean passion. I can use the word love sarcastically (I love Donald Trump) (spoiler alert – I don’t). I use the word carefully in social media messages (that’s my culture), although younger people than me will use it much more freely (that’s theirs).

In the Christmas story we see the love of a mother for a newborn child. We recognise in a heartbeat that the love of a mother for their new born child is a world apart from my affection for my wife’s cheese pie or your experience of an iPhone. It’s not the same thing at all. That kind of parental, especially maternal love is just about the top end of our continuum. It’s deep. It’s selfless. It’s passionate. It’s profound. The fact that Mary is in some sense a refugee, and the birth takes place in the most difficult of circumstances, adds depth, poignancy and richness to the love narrative. This is a story of really deep love.

But what if our understanding of the word love is incomplete. What if that continuum, which we think we’ve got sussed, goes much, much further than we ever knew or imagined. The idea isn’t as crazy as it might look. If you’ve been fortunate to experience a really good and fulfilling relationship, you’ll know that you can suddenly discover new depths of love that you never knew were there. You’d simply never experienced them before. It’s awesome. Your mind is blown.

What if there are levels of love beyond our experience or understanding? What if there are depths of love which go further than our culture can explain, or our minds can explain. What if the fact of this birth was itself an expression of love far greater than the unquestioned love which Mary felt for the baby?

What if there is a God sized love which is indescribably profound and yet somehow expressed in the birth of a small boy in a backwater of Bethlehem on a winters night. A love which goes far beyond our experience and the constraints of our culture. The kind of love which would break through the boundaries of our worldly perceptions and cause legions of angels to visibly sing praises to God and blow the minds of shepherds and wise men alike.

Pick up your concept of love, look at the context of the Christmas story, and recognise that there is something here more powerful and profound than you have ever noticed before. Just imagine. A love even deeper than you ever thought or imagined. Even more selfless. Even more passionate. Even more profound.

In the Christmas story, Jesus is called Immanuel. Immanuel means God with us. A God of love, whose love is for you.

Continuum re-evaluated.

Mind blown.

Richard Jackson, West Sussex: LifePictureUK

Advent

Advent 3 Joy: 2024

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December 2024: Horsham

Alongside the earlier themes of hope and peace, the traditional theme of this third week of Advent is joy.

Whilst my outlook on life is generally ‘glass half full’, joy is not an adjective I would generally apply to myself. It’s not that I’m always unhappy, but even when I’m excited, I don’t always express my feelings exuberantly. I have one or two friends who do just that in a big way, but I’m not sure that I would necessarily describe them as joyful.

I think that ‘joy’, as it’s used here, really expresses something much deeper. In the past, I could say that I have felt ‘joyful’ about the safe delivery of a child. A couple of years ago, I was ‘joyful’ when, having been expecting some very bad news from the doctor, the diagnosis turned out to be unexpectedly good. The feelings I experienced at those moments were so much deeper than the short term relief, excitement and delight I felt when I heard a couple of years ago that my football team (Leyton Orient, thank you for asking) had avoided relegation. I wonder whether you sense that there’s a lasting and continuing angle to this Advent ‘joy’ which I need to unpack a bit.

I’ve mentioned elsewhere in this series that Christmas is about looking back and celebrating the birth of Jesus. In the context of my faith, that is the moment when Christ took on human form and came into the world. The Angel gives Jesus the name ‘Emmanuel’ which means ‘God with us’ (Matthew 1:23). That’s a critical, defining moment of my faith. The moment when God stepped into this world in the person of Jesus. That was such an impactful moment that  connects with me in a very special way. In some way, Emmanuel gives me an inner sense of joy.

You may recall that the Apostle Paul lists ‘joy’ as one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22). Paul says that when you recognise Jesus for who he is, the Holy Spirit impacts your life. Your life is irrevocably changed (Ephesians 4:22-24). The old self is swept away, and the new life will reflect an inner sense of, amongst other things, joy. As a Christian, joy becomes part of my character. Again, this points towards something much, much deeper than the superficial happiness which we hopefully encounter on a good day in our everyday life. It’s literally in my soul. I can only experience that kind of joy because I have this inner confidence, this faith, that Christ is real, and that in some way He has His hand on my eternal life.

Of course, the fact that it falls in our calendar in the weeks before Christmas, means that Advent is a time when our culture looks ‘forwards’ to the Nativity, celebrating the coming of the Christ child. Alongside that, people look forward to all the fun and indulgence which goes with it. Yet hold on a minute, because there is something incongruous if not illogical about looking forward to something which happened 2000 years ago. If the only thing I’m really left looking forward to is the trappings of 21st Century Christmas with it’s western commercialisation, I’m missing the point. That bit certainly doesn’t fill me with the right kind of joy.

So what should I be anticipating? Scripture tells me that Christ will come again and fully establish His eternal kingdom, and that whatever it looks like, I will be a part of it. That is at the heart of what I believe. It means that I don’t have to be anxious about the future, because Christ has it all in hand. Now that gives me a real deep and inner sense of hope, peace and joy, which happen to be the first three  themes of Advent. I can only experience these emotions because the baby of the Nativity is the same Jesus who will come again in glory. As a follower of Jesus, I will be celebrating the birth of the child, but I’m also looking forward to his return.

End Piece…

I wonder if you get the idea that the joy of Advent is about much more than clapping my hands with delight and walking round with a big smile on my face. It’s about looking forwards to something extraordinarily special. Looking forward to the day when Christ will come again. The day when ‘every tear will be wiped away, and there will be no more death, no more mourning, no more suffering, and no more pain.’ Revelation 21:4.

Of course, there will be trials and tribulations for me along the way, but just knowing that that day is coming does something deep in my soul. Alongside hope and peace, it gives me joy. It occurs to me that maybe this is the reason why I am generally ‘glass half full’. Maybe, after all, ‘joy’ is an adjective I should be using when describing myself!

As Christmas drawers near, get ready to enjoy celebrating the birth of Jesus in the stable in Bethlehem. But my prayer for you this Christmas is that you too might experience that hope, peace and joy which can only come from having confidence, having faith, in Christ and the promise of his return.

This Advent, will you allow the Lord to give you ‘a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.‘ Isaiah 61:3

Richard Jackson, West Sussex: LifePictureUK

Advent

Advent 1 2024: Hope

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The first week of Advent is traditionally about hope. Last year I wrote that right now, when we look at the world, hope feels like a bit of a challenge. Some of the detail has changed, but I feel pretty much the same as I write this in 2024.

Refugees are crossing continents as the effects of economic collapse and climate change start to bite. There is no end in sight to the wars in Ukraine and Palestine. Religious violence continues across Africa and Asia. US Politics seem to be charging into uncharted waters and there is the sense of, or at least the potential for, massive geo political change occurring all around us.

Perhaps it’s not so surprising that people around us, and across the world, are discouraged. Hope, if it can be found at all, is in short supply right now.

Advent is about looking forward. It is about living in anticipation of the arrival of something. If we feel that we’re short of hope we need to lift our sights and remind ourselves what it is that we are supposed to be looking forward to.

One of the greatest themes of Scripture is the faithfulness of God to his people. I’ve seen his faithfulness in history and it has been part of my own life and experience. Knowing that He has been faithful in the past enables me to trust God for the future.

Advent is about looking forward to his continued faithfulness and love for humanity.  We are reminded of his faithfulness through the fulfilment of prophecy in the coming of the Christ child. We look forward to the fulfilment of prophecy in the return of the Messiah and the restoration of the Kingdom of God. Such is his past faithfulness that we can live in anticipation of his ongoing faithful presence. It’s about encouragement. It’s about hope.

Take Jesus out of the picture and it’s not surprising everyone feels discouraged. Put Jesus in the picture and there’s one major difference. Hope.

Of course we’re praying for peace and justice across this troubled world and for the restoration of hope in our communities. But the true hope for us all in this first week of Advent is Jesus.

Romans 15: 13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Richard Jackson, West Sussex: LifePictureUK