"In Advent, we don’t pretend, as I once thought, that we are in the darkness before the birth of Christ. Rather, we take a good hard look at the darkness we are in now, facing and defining it honestly, so that we will understand with utmost clarity that our great and only hope is in Jesus’s final victorious coming."

WHAT IS ADVENT ANYWAY?

In the weeks leading up to Christmas, Christians around the world will celebrate a season called Advent. For many, Advent is marked by the nostalgia of familiar songs, nativity scenes, Christmas trees, bright lights, and candlelight services. But beyond the feelings of nostalgia and the change in decorations, what is Advent anyway? At its heart, Advent is a season of waiting and expectation. It is a time to reflect on the long wait before God sent a savior; a wait often characterized by darkness, struggle, exile, and suffering. At Advent, we celebrate and wonder at the God who sent not just any savior into that darkness, but His very own Son who would be born into the world as a child, live a human life, and sacrifice himself on the cross for the sins of the very people who should have rejoiced at His coming. 

Author Fleming Rutledge writes, "in Advent, we don’t pretend, as I once thought, that we are in the darkness before the birth of Christ. Rather, we take a good hard look at the darkness we are in now, facing and defining it honestly, so that we will understand with utmost clarity that our great and only hope is in Jesus’s final victorious coming." In celebrating Advent we are not merely looking back at some far off period in history, but coming to grips with our own wait and longing for Jesus' return as our King and the restoration of all things.

Join us these next five weeks as we celebrate Advent in the book of Isaiah. Scattered throughout the book of Isaiah are promises of what God's people could expect as they looked for a glimmer of hope, deliverance, and salvation in the darkness of their lives. At Advent we celebrate the fulfillment of those promises in the coming of Jesus Christ into the world who, according to Isaiah, will be God with us, our light in the darkness, our one true king, and our suffering servant. See you Sunday!