Advent

Every day I think to myself, “Wow what an amazing place that we get to live in.” I look at the trees and there magnificent abundance. I look at the sky and can’t yet quite believe my eyes at how blue it really is. I guess I am still used to the orange sky of Los Angeles. This place of the big water is truly a magnificent place to be. I don’t know how one could look out over the lake or up at the mountain peaks and not know that there is an immensely creative God. A God who takes pleasure in the things that He creates. It is a comforting thought.

I also think about the struggles that we are all going through, and the immense amount of pain within all of our lives. I ponder on it and I realize how much that pain takes over our lives. And it saddens me. Then I think about the upcoming season of Advent and what it ultimately leads to in lent. The One, coming among us who will experience for Himself the pain of our lives. The One Himself taking on all the pain and suffering and cruelty of this world, with each whipping, with every fist struck upon his brow, with every thorn cutting into his flesh, with the point of a spear thrust into his side, with the sneers and spiteful words thrown like daggers into His soul. Oh yes, He physically took on the sins of the world. Your fists and my spear. A truly sobering thought. Oh yes, He could have stopped it with but a thought, but He didn’t. It was too important a task for Him because He loves us so deeply. And it is this love of Christ’s that we need to turn to when we feel like we are the ones on the cross of life.

Throughout this Advent season I want to encourage you to anticipate the coming of Christ, and the love that He extends, when you feel as if life might overwhelm you, might smother you with its worries and fears and panics...Because all of those things that life brings, He experienced as well and He knows how to carry you through. Turn to Christ, and experience the profound love and joy that is found only in Him.

Blessings this Advent season,

Pastor Joel