By: Alex Connell, Lead Pastor at Bloomington First
Repeatedly in Scripture, the people of God find themselves as captives.
Over and over again, they are subjects to evil kings, exiled from their land, or living under the oppressive rule of a new empire.
It’s during one of these subjugations that Jesus arrives to Israel.
The people of Israel have returned from exile, but they are under the oppressive thumb of the Roman Empire. The Romans are yet another foreign power that desires to control the Holy Land.
But the good news for Israel is the good news of Advent. And it is strikingly good news! God has heard the cries of his people and is going to answer them.
God has always been concerned with things like justice, peace, the lowly, the poor, and the downtrodden. God wants liberty for the captives and restoration for the brokenhearted.
And much like when the people were enslaved in Egypt and God heard them and delivered them, He’s going to do it again.
Today, we find ourselves situated as slaves in much the same manner as the Israelites in Egypt.
Our world is subjugated under the rule of the powers of Sin and Death. Paul tells us that we are enslaved to these forces, in much the same way as the Israelites were enslaved to Pharoah. We are subjects of Sin and Death in the same way that the Children of Israel were subject to the Roman Emperor.
However, it will not always be like this.
I think of the words of the prophet Isaiah and of Jesus’s mother, Mary.
In the prophet Isaiah’s time, the people of Judah were facing exile to Babylon. In Mary’s day, she sang of a time when Rome would no longer hold sway over God’s people. In our day, in this time of Advent, we look forward to a time when the King of Kings and Lord of Lords will return to his creation.
The great message of Advent is the same as Isaiah’s, it’s “good news to the oppressed” (61:1). The great hope of Advent is the same hope Mary sang while she was carrying the Christ-child in her womb, God has “lifted up the lowly” (Luke 1:52).
Advent points us to the time He came, but it also points us toward the fact that Jesus will be coming again, and when He does, we will sing the song of Mary and shout the words of Isaiah. We will greatly rejoice in the Lord our God, our Savior, for he has done great things.
Dear friends, Advent is a time of hope. Be lifted up in these days as we come closer and closer to celebrating the birth of Jesus, the Christ.