Getting Ready for Advent, Part I: The source of our joy


Our culture is in high gear for Thanksgiving. But for those who love the church and its seasons, Thanksgiving means we have almost arrived at the first Sunday of Advent. Yet it is well to remember that Advent,as our hymnody reminds us, is not only a time of quiet reflection but also one of thanksgiving and rejoicing:

Hark the glad sound! The Savior comes,
the Savior promised long;
let ev’ry heart prepare a throne,
and ev’ry heart a song!” (Evangelical Lutheran Worship #239)

Rejoice, rejoice, take heart in the night,
though dark the winter and cheerless,
the rising sun shall crown you with light,
be strong and loving and fearless. (ELW #242)

For we know that, come Christmas, we will sing:
On this day God gave us
Christ, the Son, to save us;
Christ, the Son, to save us. (ELW #291)

But what is all the rejoicing really about? Yes, the birth of Christ, the advent of the Messiah. But what does that mean to us? From what are we saved?

We find our answer in Psalm 124: “…if the Lord had not been on our side, when enemies rose up against us, then would they have swallowed us up alive in their fierce anger toward us; then would the waters have overwhelmed us and the torrent gone over us; then would the raging waters have gone right over us” (verses 2-5).

The psalmist was not writing about Jesus Christ, for this is a song of thanksgiving for God’s mighty act in delivering Israel from bondage into freedom. Nonetheless, because we are people of Christ, we experience the psalm in terms of thanksgiving for God’s mighty act in Christ through the Holy Spirit, which delivered us from bondage to death into the freedom of eternal life, here, now and forever. By Christ’s resurrection—“in the rout / casting out / pow’rs of darkness, sin and doubt” (Stephen Starke)—we know that death is defeated. With Satan powerless over us, we are free to love, free to live, “free to worship you without fear, holy and righteous before you, all the days of our life” (song of Zechariah, ELW p. 303).

This daily dying to sin and rebirth in Jesus Christ constitutes the essence of the Christian life. May a deep awareness of the source of our joy take root in us this season as we embark on another year of telling earth’s great story.

Merciful God, give us strength and courage to proclaim through our lives each day your great victory in Christ. 

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