Merry CHRISTmas!
AND Happy New Year! No, not 2024 yet, but a new church year, which started on the 1st Sunday of Advent on December 3, 2023. So, we are officially in the season of Advent. What’s “Advent?” The dictionary defines the word “advent” as “the coming or arrival of someone important.” That sure fits! Someone who is VERY important is soon to arrive… And I don’t mean Santa Claus! I know the Christmas song that says, “Santa Claus is coming to town.” But not counting the kids who can’t wait to open their gifts… who cares about Santa?
As Christians, we should be singing, “Jesus is coming to town!” In the big picture, Jesus is way more important than Santa, I hope you agree. Why? Because Jesus is GOD WEARING A HUMAN BODY! So, the Christian version should really say,
“GOD IS COMING TO TOWN!”
If that’s not worth getting excited about, what is?! The Advent devotional guide I’m following is a little book called, “Heaven and Earth: Advent and the Incarnation” by Bishop Will Willimon, currently serving as a professor and director at Duke Divinity School. Willimon points out the kind of poetic language the Bible uses to describe what it’s like when God comes to Earth. Here are two examples. One from the Old Testament prophet, Isaiah, and one from the New Testament prophet, Messiah, and Savior, Jesus Christ.
See, the day of the Lord is coming, …For the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not give their light; the sun will be dark at its rising, and the moon will not shed its light. -Isaiah 13:9-10
“But in those days, …the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.” -Mark 13:24-25
Willimon uses the title of an old Elvis song to describe what really happens when God really comes to Earth: Things get “All Shook Up.” Which prompted me to suggest a song title from Jerry Lee Lewis… When God comes to Earth, there’s “A Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On.”
What’s all the “shakin’” about? Remember Genesis Chapter 1 in the very beginning of the Bible? It says, “God created the heavens and the earth.” That required a lot of “shake and bake!” The result was a perfect world, call it the Garden of Eden, where God and humans lived together in a beautiful relationship. Then came the evil serpent, who persuaded humans to destroy God’s perfect world.
So the birth of Jesus (who is GOD wearing a human body) that we celebrate at Christmas is—in fact—the beginning of a whole new creation… where God and humans are once again living together on Earth, just like in the beginning. It’s important to notice that Jesus’ birth is the beginning of a whole new creation. The New Heaven and New Earth won’t be perfectly finished until Jesus returns again, as he promised. Meanwhile, to move toward completion there will be “A Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On.” And God is inviting you and me as followers to help with the process of “shake and bake!”
Sorry if this all seems a bit much. If you want to keep your warm and fuzzy thoughts about how sweet and beautiful Christmas is, that’s OK. But IN ADDITION TO THOSE THOUGHTS, please realize that God coming to live, walk, talk, eat, sleep and breathe with us—in the person of Jesus—is a powerful, earth-shattering, turn-the-world-upside-down kind of event.