Word of Life Church Podcast

When I was in Bethlehem the week before Advent I was given two beautiful icons. I was also given two other "souvenirs"—a spent tear gas canister and a used rubber bullet. Jesus was born in Bethlehem—at the intersection of beauty and pain, on the fault line of our most intractable conflicts. This is where salvation comes into the world. O little town of Bethlehem—where the beauty of Orthodox icons and olive wood carvings collides with the brutality of tear gas and rubber bullets. This is the birthplace of Jesus. To speak only of the icons is too sentimental. To speak only of the tear gas is too cynical. When we read of Bethlehem in the Bible we find both the adoration of the magi and the slaughter of the innocents. Hope and horror, beauty and brutality. The Incarnation is the matrix of salvation, and thus we commemorate it in the beauty of art. But Jesus was not born into the beatific scene of a Nativity icon—Jesus was born into a war torn world where paranoid despots dispatch death squads and where tear gas and rubber bullets litter the streets. Or to say it another way, "The Light shines in the darkness, but the darkness did not overcome it" (John 1:5).

The season of Advent is about anticipation, preparation, and longing. Anticipation because something has been promised by God. Preparation because we must prepare the way to participate in the promise. Longing because what has been promised matters—the salvation of the world. During Advent we practice the Christian virtue of patience as we learn to wait on God.

Jeremiah 33:14–16 is one of the great Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament. It was given by Jeremiah 400 years after David and 600 years before Christ. The prophecy says that a king will come from the line of David who will be the righteousness (covenant faithfulness) of God. This anointed king is how God keeps the promises he has made to Israel. The distinguishing characteristic of this king is that he will establish justice. In other words, Messiah will bring salvation by setting the world right.

As followers of Jesus we are called not to avenge ourselves, but to "leave it to the wrath of God," because vengeance belongs to God; God will repay. We know God's vengeance is not an eye-for-an-eye justice, so what can it mean? The wrath of God, often connected to God's vengeance, is a metaphor pointing us to God's judgment. What we call the "wrath of God" is what evil looks like in the light of the love of Christ. God will repay those who have done evil, but God's judgment is tempered with mercy.

The Christian mind is the mind of Christ where we are enabled by the Spirit to think as people in Christ. The danger of not developing a Christian mind is the potential to be cut off from the life of God. We have the mind of Christ and we have the ability to work with the Spirit in cultivating a Christian mind that is humble, renewed, active, and maturing.

Since Cain Killed Abel the human family has been longing for justice.

Following in Israel's legacy of longing, Isaiah paints a picture of the plans and purposes of God to save. He reminds the people of God to tarry. In the midst of suffering, when the light of the future seems to flicker and fade Isaiah beckons the people of God to keep waiting. For there is one coming that will set all things right. He is not coming to condemn the world, but to save it.