As informed last Sunday, the word Advent means, “He comes.” The Advent Season focuses on the two comings of our Savior: the Savior’s first coming to earth in His Bethlehem birth; the second when He returns on Judgment Day. With both of our Savior’s advents in mind, we ask with the hymn writer, “O Lord, how shall we meet You, how welcome You aright?” (CW 18 or 19 stanza 1) The answer is by sincere repentance of sins from the heart and life and by faith in our Savior’s redeeming work.
Our gracious God sends faithful messengers to herald this message, to preach the law with its earnest call to repent and to proclaim the gospel with its full assurance that through faith in Jesus we have the benefit of His forgiveness.
Christians naturally want to share God’s word. As we witness in the ministry of John the Baptizer, God’s faithful people “message” His Word, as Paul described, as “Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us” (2 Corinthians 5:20). The Lord of His Church promises to carry on this ministry of the word through His faithful people. May the Holy Spirit through the Word motivate our hearts and move our lips to faithfully proclaim: “God made him [Jesus], who did not know sin, to become sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).