Leaning into Advent

 

You have made man a little lower than the angels and crowned him with glory and honor. You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet (Ps. 8: 5).

 

I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full (John 10: 10b).

 

If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here! (II Cor. 5: 17)

 

The prof at the big university down the mountain stood behind the lectern facing 400 students and didn’t beat around the bush:

 

You’ve got to be an I-Pad. You’ve got to be extra-ordinary: flat, sleek, fast, smart, better than anything else out there. You cannot be a Blackberry. Ordinary doesn’t cut it. Yesterday can’t make it today. Don’t forget my words: BE AN I-PAD.

 

What would that do to you – to have words like that pronounced over you?

 

This is what it does to me:

 

Such words leave me feeling less human, less alive, more anxious. Those words compel me to lean into Advent, because they reveal how twisted and distorted life can be on Planet Earth in 2013. They drive me to listen to Paul’s warning in Romans 12:

 

Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. (Rom. 12: 2 in “The Message”)

 

These words also drive me to invite the Scriptures written at the top of this page to permeate my entire being.

 

Advent is a longing for the home where we can wear our God-given identities. Advent is forward-looking nostalgia to fully become the new creation God has already transformed us to be. Advent is straining our ears towards what Bruce Cockburn calls “rumours of glory.”

 

The second-century pastor Irenaeus declared, “The glory of God is seen in man fully alive.” Ah…those are Advent words. “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1: 14).

 

His glory planted in us, in our jars of clay: His life to give us “life to the full;” His promise to fill us with hope.

 

Not flat, sleek and fast. No: instead, deep and rich and full.

 

Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.

See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples.

But the Lord rises upon you and his glory appears over you.

Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn (Isaiah 60: 1-3).