What’s Advent All About?

Advent, the four Sundays before Christmas, is the first season of the traditional church year. Most people see it as a time of preparing to celebrate Jesus coming into the world as one of us. It also reminds us to stay ready for Jesus’ second coming at the end of the age. But the most important coming of Jesus is into the hearts of those who put their faith in him. And the process of preparing for that is never over because, with our infinite God, there is always more to come!

Divine road construction

Isaiah likens Advent to a road construction project. 

Listen! It’s the voice of someone shouting, 

“Clear the way through the wilderness for the Lord! 

Make a straight highway through the wasteland for our God! 

“Fill in the valleys, and level the mountains and hills. 

Straighten the curves, and smooth out the rough places. 

“Then the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together.

The Lord has spoken!”  (Isaiah 40:3–5 NLT)

Favorite Advent passages

Three favorite Advent passages are Isaiah 40:1-11, Malachi 3:1-4, and Matthew 3:1-12. In these, we can find ten blessings of Jesus’ coming. I encourage you to meditate on them as part of your Advent preparations. Take one each day, reading in context, and contemplate what it says about Jesus Christ and your life.

Here are ten blessings associated with the Advent passages. You can click on each link to read the text within its context.

• Repentance (Matthew 3:1, 8)
• Salvation (Matthew 3:11)
• Comfort (Isaiah 40:1)
• Sanctification (Isaiah 40:4)
• Purity (Malachi 3:3)
• Provision (Isaiah 40:11)
• Power (Matthew 3:11; see Acts 1:8)
• Judgment (Matthew 3:10-12)
• Reward (Isaiah 40:10)
• Glory (Isaiah 40:5)

Seven of these blessings are pure gifts of God’s grace, requiring only that we receive them by faith. The other three are our response to God’s gifts, as God helps us; as Paul wrote, 

Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you (Philippians 2:12-13 NRSV).

I’ll briefly touch on two of these themes and then turn to Isaiah’s road-building project.

Repentance

Repentance is a gift of God’s grace that we must intentionally activate through faith. Repentance for salvation is where we start (Acts 2:38); repentance for sins committed or discovered after we become Christians keeps us free from unrighteousness (Revelation 2:5; 1 John 1:9).

Purity

Purity is the result of expelling everything ungodly from our hearts and lives and guarding against letting it back in. Through the Holy Spirit, it’s our responsibility (1 Timothy 5:22), and it’s what qualifies us to see God (Matthew 5:8).

Sanctification 

Sanctification is the road between repentance and purity, which we build with God’s help as we go. Isaiah gives four steps in this construction project.

Fill in the valleys: Where are the low places in your life? Where are you farthest below the high hopes, dreams, and potential God built into you? 

Acknowledge the sinful thoughts and actions holding you down, and by God’s help bulldoze them out of your life. Then, truck in the fill: the words, work, and people of God. 

Level the mountains and hills: What obstacles are keeping you from moving forward in God’s plan for your life? What seems too high to climb over and too big to get around? Are you lifted up above yourself in pride? Are there places in your life you haven’t yet surrendered to God’s eminent domain? 

When Jesus said in Acts 1:8 that the Holy Spirit would bring us power, the Greek word he used is dunamis, the root of our word “dynamite.” Humble yourself, ask God for faith the size of a mustard seed (Matthew 17:20), and watch the Holy Spirit blast a way through.

Straighten the curves: What gets you off track? Do you veer and swerve from one goal or desire to another? Do you let yourself be led by what feels good, what’s popular, or what seems like a good idea at the time? Or do you have a clear sense of God’s direction for your life? 

God’s children know how to be led by his Holy Spirit (Romans 8:14). He’s the master surveyor, so let him set your priorities. Build your road in the direction he indicates and stay between the boundaries he marks, and you’ll avoid a lot of detours and dead ends.

Smooth out the rough places: You can fill in ravines, blast through mountains, and follow a straight compass course, and still just have a rough dirt road. In the same way, you can stop known sins, remove pride and other obstacles, go straight in the right direction, and still be pretty obnoxious.

What makes a road smooth is grading and paving. What makes a life smooth is the fruits of the Holy Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22–23). Intentionally develop these in your relationships with other people, and see how much more enjoyable the road trip of life becomes.

How will you respond?

As you reflect on Advent, what kind of traveler are you?

Some people discover it will be a toll road and don’t want to take it, even though Jesus paid the price. Others find the work too hard and go to sleep in the back of the truck. Still others are enticed by the neon promises of a convenient exit to pull off and never return. But those who persevere to the end will be able to say with Paul, 

Now the prize awaits me—the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me on the day of his return. And the prize is not just for me but for all who eagerly look forward to his appearing.  (2 Timothy 4:8 NLT)

How will you respond?

FORWARD TO the next post in this Advent series

David’s bio: After 38 years as a pastor, Dr. Wentz now focuses on writing. Over fifteen thousand copies of his first book, Pastoring: The Nuts and Bolts, have been distributed free to train pastors in developing and minority-Christian countries through the Doing Christianity nonprofit, which he heads. David lives in the Missouri Ozarks with his wife, Paula.

You can get a glimpse of David’s ministry and heart at his website: pastordavidwentz.com

David is the author of seven books, including When Church Stops Working and Pastoring Revival. His most recent is John Wesley’s Christian Perfection: Set in Modern Language with Introduction and Suggestions for Group Use, part of the best-selling John Wesley in Modern Language series. All are available at your Amazon site in print, ebook, and audio.

Photo credit: Image from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPTrajb3aeo (accessed October 20, 2024)