What did Jesus’ coming mean? What did His birth, God here on earth, bring to us? Have we forgotten His message? Have we replaced His core teachings with our own philosophies? Has our need for control and power blinded us to the life of Jesus whom we profess to follow?
During this Advent season, I want to remember Jesus as He really was. I want to remember what He really taught. I want to get back to the essence of the Kingdom of God. Sometimes when I look at what the world sees Christians standing for today, I no longer want to be identified as a Christian. It seems that Christianity has forgotten many of the basic ways of Jesus. In my life, and during this season of anticipation, I want to recapture the spirit of Jesus, and with His help, attempt to live in His Kingdom each day.
So, I will focus on a different detail of living in God’s Kingdom each day during Advent. Today’s focus is Openness. In order to be ready for Jesus’ birth, I must be open, otherwise I cannot accept God in a manger. In order to be ready to hear Jesus’ teachings as ancient Palestinians must have heard them, I must be open, otherwise I am only hearing His words filtered through my biases and the biases of those who have taught me. In order to be ready for the ushering in of the Kingdom of God, I must be open, otherwise I am only clinging to tradition.
I am not saying that all traditions and old ways of doing things are bad. No, there is so much I appreciate about traditions, old writings, and my heritage. In fact, I’ve found that many old traditions find new meaning for me as I am open to new ways of thinking and being. But if that is all that I am hearing, then I may miss the new thing God is speaking today. I may miss Jesus because of my religion.
So today, on this first day of Advent, may I be open to new words and new ways and new wisdom. Come, Lord Jesus.
“No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak; otherwise, the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins.” Mark 2:21-22
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