A Most Exciting Time

The coming of Christmas means different things to different people. Holidays. Shopping. Giving. Receiving. Decorating. Singing carols. Listening to Run, Run, Rudolph or Santa Baby, ad nauseam. (I'm already tired of them. Seems to be all XM radio offers.) To some it means loneliness and pain, and yet it is the hope for all nations that someday the pain and loneliness will end and Joy will reign.

One of my favorite years, out at the ranch, we had the whole family together. We all got red PJs, or house pants, as Gary would say. We posed for a picture in front of the fireplace. The girls have grown a bit since then, and I have a few more gray hairs, but those years at the ranch were magical times of big house parties and food and games and presents, but also of sharing the Christmas story and worshiping our Redeemer.

To me, the weeks leading up to Christmas are fun, hectic, sometimes stressful, but behind all the hype, it means celebrating that my Savior came to the world as a tiny baby, in the most humble circumstance, to save the world. We've celebrated Advent at church, lighting a candle each week and reading passages from the account of Christ's birth, and we had an advent calendar almost every year when our kids were small. This year, I want to take time to contemplate and celebrate the advent, the coming of the Lord Jesus.

What is Advent? Advent comes from the Latin word Adventus, meaning 'coming.' I've seen it defined as the fourth Sunday before Christmas and the first Sunday in December. This year, that would be December 1st by either definition.

The Bible is filled with prophesies about the coming of Jesus Christ. The stage was set from the beginning. When man and woman decided they knew better than God (Ouch - like I've never done that!) The woman - Eve - blamed the serpent for her disobedience. (Ouch again. I would never blame someone else for my bad decisions or actions. Right.)

Genesis 3: 14-15 Then the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all animals, domestic and wild. You will crawl on your belly, groveling in the dust as long as you live. And I will cause hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring [prophesy about Christ]. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.” 

I've been amazed, reading through the Bible, how many times the old testament refers to the Messiah. Googling old testament references to the coming of Messiah, I find lots of differing thoughts. One sight claims there are 400 references to Christ's coming. Another claims over 60 prophesies and 300 references. However many there are, there are many.

This past winter we visited friends in Cincinnati, Ohio and attended the Dead Sea Scrolls at the Museum of History. What an amazing exhibit. We saw the actual jars, or clay vats that held the scrolls. We saw many artifacts from that time, and many pieces and sections of the scrolls that have been reassembled. Among them was one of the Isaiah scrolls. They found several of these, all copies from the original. This one was the oldest and most complete scroll found. It is believed to have been made 125 years before Christ, and hidden in the caves at Qumran about 70 AD, when the Romans laid siege to the Jews. http://dss.collections.imj.org.il/isaiah

It gave me chills to be in the presence of the scrolls and the artifacts that, to me, confirm my faith. I am going through the Christmas story this Advent season, and invite you to come along with me.