"Advent is a time of anticipation not for the harmless baby surrounded by lights and presents, but for the dynamic savior who is born into our midst in a way that must forever change us. "Do you want to be delivered?" asked Dietrich Bonhoeffer in an Advent sermon more than 70 years ago. "That is the only really important and decisive question which Advent poses for us. Does there burn within us some lingering longing to know what deliverance really means? If not, what would Advent then mean to us? A bit of sentimentality. A little lifting of the spirit within us? A little kinder mood? But if there is something in this word Advent which we have not yet known, that strangely warms our heart; if we suspect that it could, once more, once more, mean a turning point in our life, a turning to God, to Christ--why then are we not simply obedient, listening and hearing in our ears the clear call: Your deliverance draws nigh!"(2)In this season of Advent we remember a strange and drastic story. We anticipate nothing less than the Lion of Judah wrapped in swaddling cloths. We anticipate the coming of a Savior unhindered. Indeed, our deliverance draws nigh."
by Jill Carattini, managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.
(2) Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Christmas Sermons Edwin Robertson Ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005), 93.
Thanks to the ladies at WhoCares for this great piece!
1 comment:
Yes, we pray that we and our children will know that we need deliverance. Who wants it if we do not know we need it?
Thanks! And I'm going to check out "Who Cares"!
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