THE THIRD WEEK OF ADVENT
FOCUS OF PREPARATION: JOY

I have been contemplating “the coming” for three weeks now, looking for Jesus among the hustle and bustle of life. One thing that strikes me is how many people in his day did not receive him, much less even stop to listen. “The coming” simply passed them by.

And that is the thing about Jesus. He comes in the least expected ways and to the least expected places – as a baby in a manger, as a young boy in the synagogue, as a teacher in the homes of sinners, as a King on the cross of thieves. And he will come again like a thief in the night.

This, too, was foretold by Isaiah:

Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

He was despised and rejected by others; a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, smitten, and afflicted by God (Isaiah 53:1-4).

How tragic, and how true still in our day. “The coming” passes so many by, not just at Christmas, but if at Christmas, then how much more the rest of the year! I stopped to listen during this Advent season – to look around the manger and the synagogue, the back alleys and the company of thieves. I prayed, “Come, Lord Jesus, come,” and come he did. Not clandestinely, but plainly in the most obvious of places.

But I can’t tell you where because that would give away my sermon this week. See you Sunday.

SCRIPTURE READING: John 1:1-18