Advent: Hope and Anticipation

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, imprisoned and executed for plotting to kill Hitler, once said, “A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes, and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent.”

Advent. From a Latin word, it means the coming or arrival of something extremely important. Imagine for a moment, what it must have been like for the Israelites. The Romans held them in bondage. They watched and yearned for their Savior. They knew from the Scriptures that He would come. We remember this by singing, “O come, O come, Immanuel, and ransom captive Israel.” Do we understand the longing they had for their Savior?

I know someone who is in jail. He lies on his bed; he waits; he hopes. His sense of anticipation is heightened when he hears footsteps and voices. His freedom will come someday when the door opens – from the outside.

Christ has already come to earth so we do not look for Him like the Israelites did. We are not in a physical prison.

However, we sometimes create our own prisons. Choices we make or our disobedience to God’s principles entrap us in a life much like a prison. We experience pain. We experience loss. We experience rejection.

If we have never placed our faith in Christ for our salvation, we are in another sort of prison. Christ wants to open the door of our prison cell and set us free. John 8:36 says, “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”

Think about Advent. Think about our hope. Think about freedom. Experience the anticipation and thank God for this season of promise.

Free Speech

"For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ;"

Within my Christian circle of friends, I share my understanding of Bible passages, Christianity and religion. Sometimes we agree and sometimes not. We challenge one another and hopefully grow in our faith. Iron sharpens iron.

Outside that circle, however, I not only hesitate to share my faith, but hesitate to express other convictions that I know are based in God's Word. I ask myself why this is so. I am not ashamed of my Lord.

I determined that my hesitations come from a strong aversion to being attacked and degraded. I look at what has taken place with Gov. Palin. I believe that the attacks she has endured have been because she is a person of faith who lives what she believes. Likewise, I believe the same thing happened to Gov. Huckabee. With that black mark of being a Baptist pastor in his past, liberals had a coronary and many conservatives skipped a beat. What is wrong with us? We should be so thankful that people of high integrity even want to serve us.

So, as I read Romans 1 today, I recognize my own failings by not sharing with more people the truth that will surely make them free. God speaks to us in His Word. We need to be faithful in spite of ridicule and press on to improve the spiritual and moral state of our country.

If I succomb to my fears, I have lost a precious freedom - the freedom to speech. Others do not have a right to make this difficult for me, but if I let them, they will. I have a responsibility to express myself in a godly manner, but express myself I will.