A remembered future

The wearied soul tires from the burden he contemplates, this burden of knowing the love and peace his Lord has granted him yet evading his neighbor who goes on wishing for proof that God lives and loves. Even his Christian brother engages by the reasoned argument, an ever so subtle means to confine his Lord, though he admits to himself the reasoned why can be light to an otherwise lost soul, a segue to opening a hardened heart. What tires him are the echoes from the clamoring culture, the “if-only’s” that plague mankind’s thinking. These are the dissonant sounds from history, the drum beat rhythms of a ballad long repeated through the ages.

But, he says of the Lord, his refuge and stronghold, his God in whom he trusts, that He will save him from the fowler’s trap, from the destructive plague. Having taken hold of this assurance by the Psalmist, he travels farther, he remembers his future, this Hope God granted him in which he finds rest. He realizes the burden he carries is not his alone but also belongs to God. No other companion could accompany him because no other has such fidelity.

Friends, this is Advent, not just a beginning, but a remembrance of God’s promise, a promise of Hope. The Psalmist goes on, “When he calls on Me, I will answer him; I will be with him in distress; I will rescue him and make him honored; I will let him live to a ripe old age and show him my salvation.”

On a certain night, under a starlit sky in Bethlehem, a child was born, an advent for those who long awaited the fulfillment of God’s promise. And we have seen our salvation, our Hope and remembered future. In this we find rest and peace even as we carry our burdens, which we do not carry alone for the child born on that night is our companion, the One who stands by us, the One sent to live as men and show us our future.

Though we spend our agency on everything else, God waits for our birth into that Hope, as did those who waited for His birth on a certain night in Bethlehem. When the waiting is over, advent comes. And it comes again and again to those who seek Him and follow Him. The coming again comes through revelation, through promise and assurance, through knowing to whom we belong, and remembering our future, the Kingdom to come.

When the confusions subside, allow the leavings of those contemplations to lie still, to become but members of those moments of which we can say, “this too shall pass.” For all shall pass but what did come on that silent night, but the One who sent, the One who came. Advent is a season without end, only beginnings and futures remembered.

“Those who have ears to hear, let them hear” (Matthew 11:15, NKJV).