This article explores the significance of Advent, emphasizing the importance of focusing on the true meaning of Christmas beyond the commercialization and festivities.
The Advent season is about preparing our hearts, minds, and souls to welcome the birth of the King of Kings. It is those magical and mystical weeks after Thanksgiving that lead to Christmas — and as Pastor Max Lucado has said, Advent is to Christmas what Lent is to Easter. The two big Christian holy days are eternally linked. Lucado told Fox News, ' Christmas begins what Easter celebrates.' Christmas is about the birth of Jesus. Easter is about what He was born to do.
In the last few decades, that knowledge has taken a back seat to the hustle and bustle of shopping, parties, and Santa Claus. Even the 'comfort and joy' heralded is more about general feelings of delight and glee than the meaning of the birth of the Lion of Judah. As one theologian said, all of these things are fine — but we should remember that they all flow from one event: the birth of the Savior. Just as with the meaning of each Advent candle, there are four things to keep us laser-focused on what Christmas is all about — and what it leads us to know and understand. They are the hope prophesied in the Old Testament; the peace of the Incarnation; the joy it brings; the love we can experience — and Jesus Christ as the culmination of all. Hope: The Prophecies When the first candle was lit, it begins the hope that is in every human heart, that there is a love that surpasses all understanding. That hope has its origins in the Old Testament. Woven through the Bible's Old Testament are hundreds of prophecies that tell of a Messiah, a Savior, that will be born sometime in the future. Many of the prophecies, like those in Isaiah, were written centuries before the birth of Jesus
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