Belmont University Advent GuideSample

What does the coming of Christ mean? Why would Christ even come at all? There is a recurrent, steady act of “coming” from God to people woven throughout our story. At first, God intended to be with humans intimately in the cool of a garden. After a tragic fall, God was not done. God did not throw up his hands. In short, God was not us. God then called Moses up upon the mountain that was his. God came further in a dwelling place among the people, settling his restful, rooted presence within a nomadic, uprooted people. Soon enough, God came as one of us—flesh and all. Temptation, blood, water, skin, love, laughter, death, joy, family and friends, coming and going. When we think of Jesus’ Gospel, we often forget that it all would not have taken place without the beginning, the coming. The arrival of Jesus Christ on earth changed and continues to change everything. “When the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us”—in other words, when Christ comes, nothing stays the same. Christ’s coming encompasses the totality of our being. Whether it be our salvation or the food in front of us on Christmas morning, Christ’s coming is the source of life, in the big and the small, for his sheep. What a beautiful Master we have who would usher himself into our world and want to start from scratch. I can only imagine the night that He was born. No word truly comes to mind except a silencing, paralyzing peace, a rest that sings a heavenly lullaby to generations restless in sin, whole people groups whose eyes are sore from iniquitous insomnia. In Hebrew, “Shalom,” often translated “peace,” was not a meditative sense of serenity. “Shalom” concerns the entirety of a human life and soul. Indeed, both our lives and souls are changed by the peace of Jesus that is good will to men and women everywhere. In this season, we get to remember that this kingdom peace only requires our eyes on our Jesus quietly stirring in a manger. Know the peace of Jesus. Trevor Black Senior, Biblical Studies