How would you like to grow this year? In this final Advent Song, John the Baptist exhorts "all people" to "prepare the way for the Lord." As we reflect on 2016 and look ahead to 2017, this is a fitting time for us to heed John the Baptist's call to evaluate our current way of life and strive to make greater room for Christ.
At Bethlehem God became human. It’s an enormous descent when God the Son leaves the Godhead (Trinity) and is birthed as a baby in Bethlehem. A huge descent! But once his mission is accomplished, he is exalted to the highest place, returning to the Godhead as Jesus Christ our Lord and God. You are invited to come and experience this enormous plunge Jesus endured for us from highest high to the lowest low and back again so that we might live in a relationship with God forever.
Simeon received the unique promise from God that he would not die until he had seen the Messiah with his own eyes. This song is his response to the fulfillment of that promise: the moment when he held the baby Jesus in his arms. One of the lyrics of his song is, to paraphrase, "Now I can die in peace." What would it be like to be to able to face death with that kind of contentment? The Bible tells us that if we are in Christ, we too can not only die in peace, but we can live in peace too!
The song the angels sang to the shepherds announcing the birth of Jesus was a song of glory to God and peace to all who will accept Christ as Lord and Savior. What is peace? Where does it come from? How can we have it?
We're looking at Mary’s Song (Luke 1:39-56), often called "The Magnificat" from the first line, "My soul magnifies the Lord." Mary is a troubled teenager who finds herself in an anxious yet glorious situation. Troubled because she is pregnant and unmarried, yet she knows she’s a virgin.
But when God speaks to her, affirming his plan for her, she moves quickly from anxiety to adoration. It’s remarkable what a spoken word from God will do to the countenance of your soul. A word from God to you could move your soul from anxiety to adoration in an instant. Come…let’s talk about it.
This is the first of 4 "Songs of Advent" we'll look at during the Advent season. Zechariah's song of praise to God can be found in Luke 1. What does it show us about drawing near to God?
