Dear First Pres,
For the last six weeks we’ve been meditating on Genesis 1 & 2 Sunday mornings. For me, personally, it’s been one of the most challenging sermon series I've preached because these passages are so foundational and fundamental to our faith while also raising all kinds of big questions. This past Sunday, particularly, focused on Genesis 2:18-25, stirred up a lot of “feels” (as the younger generation likes to say). Genesis 2 shows us the way that God designed things to be. It wasn’t good for the man to be alone, which means that it isn’t good for anyone to be alone. So, to fix this problem or to complete His work of creation, God created a woman to be partner and companion for the man. And He instituted the very first marriage as the lifelong covenant relationship from which the rest of humanity would come. By God’s grace, at the end of Genesis 2, Adam and Eve were “both naked and they felt no shame.” It’s the ideal picture of what God intended marriages to be like.
However, because of what happens in Genesis 3, we struggle to have marriages and relationships that reflect the standard of Genesis 2. So, for some of us, focusing on what marriage is supposed to be was a very painful experience because it reminded us of what we are not or have not experienced. The reality is that for many in our congregation there is much pain associated with marriage or family or relationships. All of us feel that pain in some way, but for some in our congregation it is acute.
That’s one of the reasons I’m so glad we’re a church that observes the season of Advent. Advent isn’t just the season to get organized for Christmas. For us, it’s a season to place the reality of our sufferings and disappointments and hurts and hardships in the context of our hope for a Savior who has come and is coming again. We don’t minimize the pain, we acknowledge it for what it is – a reminder that we need Jesus to come again and bring everything under His Lordship. Advent also helps us to frame human suffering in the good news of Jesus, God with us.
The first advent of Jesus (advent means arriving or coming), who was born into humble circumstances, lived a humble life and then suffered on our behalf, reminds us that we have a great high priest who Himself has suffered and endured and overcome. God is not unaware of our suffering. He is with us in the midst of it, and He is bringing an end to it through the return of Jesus.
So, Advent is an interesting mix of acknowledging our great needs for Jesus to return while also celebrating the fact that He is returning. As the old Advent hymn demonstrates so perfectly: “O come, O come Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel, that mourns in lowly exile here, until the Son of God appear. Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.”
For all these reasons, I think it’s very appropriate for us to enter the season of Advent with a Service of Lament, tomorrow night at 7 p.m. It’ll be a time to lift up the reality of our sufferings to the Lord, while putting our trust in Him afresh.
Beloved, are you suffering? Are you aware of the dissonance between your life and Genesis 2? Are you grieving? Are you longing for something better? Are you thirsty for the Kingdom of God to come in fullness, in Fresno as it is in heaven? Then use this Advent season as it is intended, as a time to name those laments to the Lord while reinforcing our confident expectation that Jesus is coming again.
Blessings,
Jeremy
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