Devotional thoughts for Wednesday

Wednesday 10. December 2014

Ad te Levavi. 2. Sunday in Advent

By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has arrived in the flesh is from God. 1. John 4,2 ESV

Advent is about preparing us for Christmas, and Christmas is about the incarnation of God in human flesh. Advent reminds us that the Old Testament speaks of this incarnation throughout its pages and prophets. 

The incarnation of God can get lost in all our hustle and bustle from Thanksgiving to New Year's Day. He is so easy to miss: He is just another baby boy born to an average family. Many never move beyond that understanding of Jesus: He is just a good man teaching us to be good, moral people. Morality, however, is not what makes Christianity unique among the world's religions. Every religion teaches some sort of morality and many of their moral tenets agree across religious lines. This is the result of God putting the law and morality upon our very conscience when He created Adam and Eve. 

Christianity's unique doctrine is the incarnation. God became man and dwelt among us. If we stop there, Christianity is still not unique. Other religions and mythologies talk about the gods interacting with people on earth. The Greeks and Romans had all sorts of demigods: people who were the offspring of a god and a woman. Hercules is perhaps the most recognizable in our culture. 

Christianity's unique doctrine is: God became man and dwelt among us so as to save us from our sinfulness. That gospel is the cornerstone of the Christian faith. Jesus was born in order to save us and redeem us back to God our Father. This is why John makes the emphatic statement that confessing the incarnation, and all that it means in Christianity, in his epistle. Jesus has arrived in the flesh and that is good news for us. 

Prayer: O God of love, those who abide in love abide in You, and You abide in them. Give us such perfect love of You and our neighbor so that all fear may be cast out of our hearts and we may with confidence greet You on the Day of Judgment; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, One God, now and forever.  Amen. (1124, Treasury of Daily Prayer)