Advent Anticipations

There is a saying that you should “prepare for the unexpected.” This is similar to the Boy Scout motto that I heard over and over again growing up in Boy Scouts, ‘be prepared.’ Which to be honest sounds great when you are younger but at some point begs some pretty important questions.

·      What are you preparing for?

·      How do you know what to prepare for?

·      How do you stay constantly prepared for the unknown?

 

Obviously we can prepare for many eventual outcomes in our lives and should, but consciously or unconsciously we still have to make decisions about what we are preparing for, what is it that we are anticipating coming?

Advent is all about anticipating and preparing for the birth of Christ, but if it is only preparing for the birth of a child, born into poverty in a manger who we can now oooo and aww over then our preparations are going to fall well short of what they should be. We will not actually be prepared for the significant shift that Jesus’ birth and life heralded in the earthly and cosmic realms.

Therefore let us anticipate and prepare for the WONDERFUL COUNSELOR, MIGHTY GOD, EVERLASTING FATHER, and PRINCE OF PEACE that Isaiah proclaims. Let us prepare for the anointed one, the messiah, who came to lead us into a new life. Let us anticipate the personal, communal, political, spiritual, and socio-economic changes that Christ’s birth signify during this Christmas Season.

There will be more coming about each of these names and what they signify about our preparations during advent that I will post over the next four weeks.

Update: This material is inspired by reading through Walter Brueggemann's Names for the Messiah: An Advent Study which I am doing for myself this advent season. 

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