Advent and Sanctification

Hush. Hush.

Creation is waiting… in anticipation

Millennia have passed.

It is time.

He is come.

He. Is. Come.

Immanuel.

God. 

With us.

Heaven come to earth.

Grace in the form of a baby.

Love bundled in swaddling cloths.

Joy giggling in His mother’s arms.

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

In humility, He emptied himself,

taking the form of a bond-servant,

being made in the likeness of men.

Being found in appearance as a man,

He humbled Himself

by becoming obedient to the point of death,

even death on a cross.

The birth was for death.

Death was for life.

And life can be had abundantly.

God became man

That man might be saved.

He came to earth that we might have life.

He gave his life and so conquered death.

And so we die to sin and are born in Christ.

And yet. The story’s not over:

For, I do not understand what I do.

For what I want to do I do not do,

but what I hate I do.

As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it,

but it is sin living in me.  

I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.

For I do not do the good I want to do,

but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.

Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

What a wretched man I am!

And so it is that we,

who have the firstfruits of the Spirit,

groan inwardly

as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship,

the redemption of our bodies.

In this hope we were saved.

We hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

And so.

Creation is waiting.

The story’s not over.

We wait in anticipation.

The second advent.

Hush. Hush.