Calgary Church – Join a movement….

December marks a change in the Christian calender from ordinary time to Advent--a time of expectations and waiting. It's a moment where we can remind ourselves of the good news of Christ's arrival into the world, and a time to permit this announcement to re-order our lives and communities.

...On one hand while there is an expectation for the culmination of biblical prophesies and promises, at the same time there’s a raw humanity to it all: a teenage girl is expecting – morning sickness, cramps, unreasonable cravings. Her much older fiancee is trying to figure out ways to get rid of her and save face. Within all of this mess an expectation emerges that points to a renewed hope for the world. As Mary and Joseph sneak into Bethlehem under the stars, there Jesus smuggles himself into humanity...

On the other hand Advent gives us a reason to stop and wait, pushing away the stress of the holiday season to recapture the images of the first nativity scene.

So why is Advent important and what does it have to do with hope?

Part of the importance lies with what we're remembering, not so much a baby in a manger, but the raw humanity of the event. From a Christian perspective God himself intercedes into the history of humanity in the person of Jesus Christ. Therein lies hope.

Not any hope, but hope for renewal and redemption.

It's not a hope to escape this world and attend an eternal box social in the clouds that many Christians would conveniently believe. Rather, it's a hope to right the wrongs in our world. Big things like justice, power, and love.

It's fair to assume that we all, when given the choice, would choose justice over injustice. We also crave certain things like relationships and love--and not just any love--but to be loved unconditionally.

An answer to these longings of humanity are revealed climatically in life and times of Jesus Christ.

Christ came into the world to show that even the most unjust of all things, death, could not defeat him. Not only that, he simultaneously freely offers an opportunity to humanity to reconnect with him in a real tangible relationship.

He is the first to unleash a change in human history where there's a reason given why wrongs should be turned into rights, and the only place people can grasp unconditional love. These are immense offers.

But that doesn't mean that all wrongs are turned right today. This is where the redemption part fits in. Given the state of our world, complete with broken hearts and broken bones, it's hard to understand how Christ some 2000 years ago is the solution.

Christians should have a hope, rooted in what Christ did and then promised, that what we see today will ultimately be restored (meaning a redeemed creation....so probably not fires reigning down from the heavens as in most 'end times' fantasies, but the renewal of what has been broken).

In the meantime we don't sit and wait for restoration to come to pass. Rather, Christian expectations should be rooted in our own role to act as a preview, the foretaste, of what Christ will ultimately restore. There is a mess in humanity with every form of brokenness, but from manger to cross Christians are given a very clear example of a who so they can have an answer as to why.

I guess you could say that it's a big deal then, if you believe it, that God would take on the mess of humanity by coming into the world in less than ideal circumstances to point the entirety of human history in a direction that didn't default to injustice, mess, brokenness, destruction, hate...... And doing all this while simultaneously reaching out to humanity not only to say, 'do this' but 'take this gift' to be reconnected and loved as somebody with eternal value.

That's Christmas, that's our wait, but really the wait is over....

Props to thestory for their expectation image and some content.