From Manger to Cross

It's Advent! The season when Christ-followers celebrate and anticipate the coming of the Christ-child at the First Advent. It's the benchmark of humanity when God invaded His creation and came incarnate! "God with skin-on," as Eugene Peterson puts it.

Advent is a season of reflection, anticipation, expectation and joy. Too often those of us in pastoral ministry are so busy preparing messages, devotions, and worship that we race through this special season because we're always looking ahead. The Advent journey is to be savored and enjoyed. Don't rush it. Don't get ahead. Redeem the time. Take in every day as we commemorate His first Advent and look forward to His Second Advent.

At MCF, Advent culminates with our annual Christmas Eve Candlelight & Communion service. At this annual service we ask worshipers to come in family groups to receive communion. Over the years several of my colleagues have asked why we receive communion during Advent? I simply say, "Why not?" Christ came to the world as God's gift for redemption knowing full well it would culminate at the cross. To focus on the birth of Jesus, at the exclusion of its purpose reduces it to just another child being born. However, His purpose for coming dictated that this wouldn't be just "another birth" in ancient Palestine. I am not suggesting we minimize His birth, but the way in which He came to earth (Prophecy, Angels, Shepherds, Virgin Birth, Magi, etc.) reminds us that His death, burial and resurrection were as extraordinary. The Apostle Paul puts it best in Colossians:

¹⁵ He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. ¹⁶For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. ¹⁷And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. ¹⁸And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. ¹⁹For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, ²⁰and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

So as we shop, decorate, worship, and gather for seasonal parties and gatherings keep in mind that God knew His perfect gift would ultimately be destroyed so you and I could experience eternal life! Now that's the gift of Advent, a gift like no other.