SERIES
Advent: Into His Marvelous Light
2016-11-27T08:00:00-06:00
15:1 After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision: “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” 2 But Abram said, “O Lord GOD, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” 3 And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.” 4 And behold, the word of the LORD came to him: “This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.” 5 And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” 6 And he believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness.
7 And he said to him, “I am the LORD who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.” 8 But he said, “O Lord GOD, how am I to know that I shall possess it?” 9 He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” 10 And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half. 11 And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.
12 As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. 13 Then the LORD said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. 14 But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. 15 As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. 16 And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”
17 When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. 18 On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, 19 the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, 20 the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, 21 the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.”
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright (c)2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. http://www.esv.org
If we’re not careful, Christmas can quickly become an exhausting season that distracts us from its very meaning. While we are tempted to race around and “win” Christmas in our decorating and gift-giving, Advent invites us to pause and consider the lengths to which God Himself has gone to win us and give us Himself. As we enter this season once again, are we more preoccupied with all we must do or with all that God has done?
On Sunday, Chad Scruggs reminded us of the connection between Creation and Recreation through the powerful imagery of light. When God began to create, He started with light. In Genesis 1, the Lord spoke the transformative words, “Let there be light,” into a world that was “without form and void.” The Creator brought all of his resources to bear upon His creation, even though she had nothing to offer in return. God’s light came as a gracious gift to a world that did not deserve it. When our own lives feel formless and void, shrouded in darkness, the creation story speaks a good word to us. The very things that make us think that the Lord would have nothing to do us...do not hinder Him from sending His light. The light shines in the darkness.
When God began to create, He started with light. And when He begins to recreate, He starts with the light of Christ. There is nothing we can do to deserve the light of Christ, but that did not stop Him from coming. Though we were lost in deep darkness, “God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6). In the next month, our Christmas lights may impress. Our gifts may light up someone’s countenance. But nothing rivals the brilliance of the light of Christ shining in a human heart. If we know Him, we live in the light of His love, and we bask in the glow of His approval. By God’s grace, this season is about a heart-changing promise, not an exhausting performance. The light has pierced the darkness, and that light now shines in our hearts. Is that the brightest light of our Christmas, the one that our neighbors will see even when all the decorations go back in their boxes?