An Advent to Remember

My favorite Advent story is far from traditional, but it goes like this: Rahab the prostitute hid the Israelite spies and in return asks for a sign, a “pledge of faithfulness,” that she and her household will be saved at the fall of Jericho. The spies tell her to hang a scarlet cord out of her window. Rahab does this and she and her family are saved. Furthermore, Rahab is grafted into the lineage of Christ.

The Hebrew word for cord here is tiqvah; it literally means cord. I know, it’s not a very interesting word translation, but, wait, because there’s more. From that point on in the Old Testament, the word tiqvah gets translated as hope.

Many Hebrew words are like this. You have a high and lofty idea like hope attached to this concrete image like a cord hung out a window as a pledge of faithfulness.

I have been studying the early Christian church, the history of what happened, but also how they thought about Christ a few generations after his life on earth. One prominent philosopher of the day, Celsus, wrote an eloquent argument against Christianity. He makes the point that the way to God was by clearing the mind of sensory distractions. Only then can one’s mind ascend to God.*

Don’t we sometimes think that way too? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wished during the Christmas season to wipe the schedule clean, do away with presents, and live in a cabin in the woods where we can make memories and sing hymns and all can be holy. Or have you ever thought like me, that I would be doing so much better if I could just figure out how to have hours of quiet spent in prayer and devotion to God?

Origen, one of the great early Christian thinkers of the third century, responds to Celsus like this: “…the Holy Scripture shows more compassion for humankind when it presents the divine Word, who was in the beginning with God… as becoming flesh in order to reach everyone.”* In other words, we don’t ascend to God. God descended to us.

One of the coolest discoveries I’ve made in studying the early church is how committed they were to the historical person of Jesus. In a society that praised Greek philosophy and attaining higher levels of thinking, the early church wanted it clear: Hope is not a concept; he is a Person. He’s the physical embodiment of God’s love for sinners, and his name is Jesus Christ.

I think this is why I love how tangible the observance of Advent is. We physically light candles, one more each week, to remember how the Light of the World stepped down into our messy broken world. We watch the light of our hope grow each week, and it’s okay if we begin in the dark. After all, that’s exactly where God began, by speaking light into the dark.

In the story of Rahab, hope is made physically touchable in the tiqvah-cord. Hope isn’t an ideal to understand, it’s a cord you are tied to. Jesus Christ is our living Hope—his death and resurrection are our literal scarlet pledge of God’s faithfulness. Like Rahab, we are grafted into the lineage of Christ—coheirs with him. We know he is coming again, once-and-for-all ending pain and brokenness and suffering because he already—actually and historically—came.

Listen, friend, I know the tension of the holiday season. But don’t miss that you have a hope who stepped into your story—whose name is Immanuel—God with us. You don’t have to strive to get up to him. You don’t have to create a silent night, holy night kind of Christmas. You don’t have to spend hours of time in devotion and prayer. And, listen, it’s not that those aren’t good things. It’s that time with God isn’t a place to ascend to, it’s that He already descended to exactly where you are at. He’s with you. Already. Right now.

Stringing lights. Decking halls. Burning cookies. Sweeping pine needles. Reminding children to keep their ever-loving hands off the pretty ornaments every day until Christmas. Here.

Whether your holidays are stuffed full without room like the town of Bethlehem or sparse like the straw-lined manger-crib the Christ-child was laid in—Christ came to you. You don’t have to work to bring him anywhere.

He’s already here.
…

Hey, friend, I'd love to know: do you observe Advent? What tangible ways do you make Hope real and include Christ in your home during the Christmas season?

…

Praying you and yours experience the nearness of Christ this holiday season.

Amanda Conquers

*Source: The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God, by Robert Louis Wilkin.