Advent: December 1, 2024

We have entered the Advent season. With that in mind, we want to share some Advent reflections to help us remember every day of this season that Jesus has come. The truth is every day is a day to celebrate the Advent of Jesus.

Advent is the season chosen to remember Jesus coming on mission to seek and save the lost. We remember the anticipation of those who were waiting for his Advent. We call attention to the truth Jesus has come and that he is coming again. Advent to remember Advent and look forward to a future Advent. In the celebration of Advent we enjoy that he has come, and we enjoy the anticipation of his coming again.

We want to celebrate Advent by referring to the texts that meet us daily in our Bible reading plans. It’s easy to find the Christmas texts, but the whole Bible preaches Jesus and the mission, so what does it look like to mine the truth of Jesus from the texts that meet us daily as we grow up to maturity in Christ?

Let’s get started.

Psalm 121 (ESV) 1 I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? 2 My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth. 3 He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. 4 Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. 5 The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is your shade on your right hand. 6 The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. 7 The LORD will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. 8 The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.

The Bible will gives indications as we read and study that worshipers of other “gods” worship divinely created beings that have rebelled against the Lord and come down on tops of mountains as a gateway to their evil work on the earth. In their use of mountain tops as places to engage followers they have deceived and taken captive the Lord’s image-bearers. Adherents to these beings would put their shrines on those mountains, like Mount Hermon, as their place of dark and evil worship. Jesus chose to go to Hermon at Caesarea Philippi for Peter’s confession and his transfiguration on Hermon. It was Jesus’ declaration of war that would be finally waged at the cross, and he declared it at a place of evil worship.

This Psalm is not saying these beings are to be honored along with Yahweh. The Psalmist is not advocating for how the people have been taken captive to worship other “gods”. There is no affirmation of any worship other than the worship of Jesus, who is the LORD.

God is good to meet them where they are even in their poor understanding and transform how they interpret his world.

God makes it clear that when they look up to the mountains in search of divine help, there is only One who is a real help and only One who can save. Yahweh!

Psalm 121 is a call to look to the LORD for salvation and no one else.

It is Yahweh who helps and saves.

Who is Yahweh? He is Jesus.

Jesus is the Latin version of the Hebrew name Yeshua, also pronounced as Joshua. Joshua means, Yahweh saves. It is no coincidence Mary was told to name her son, Joshua, Jesus.

The hill in Psalm 122 to which the Psalmist looks should remind us that Jesus ascended a hill bearing the penalty of our sins and died in our place for our sins. Jesus was carried down the hill and laid in a tomb. However, Jesus rose victorious over sin and the curse and death, and he went back up a hill, the Mount of Olives, and ascended to the right hand of God the Father to make atonement for all who would turn to him in faith.

We look to the hill of the cross for our help, and where does it come from? It comes from Jesus, the LORD, who made heaven and earth, who came on a mission to seek and save the lost, who died in the place of those lost for their sin, who rose, and who ascended to atone for those who would repent and believe.

Look to the hill of the cross. Look to Jesus today. He will meet you on the hill of the cross where victory has been won.