The Promise of the Father
I loved Santa Claus.
As a child, the weeks leading up to Christmas was torture. Where I grew up, children didn’t write letters to the North Pole. But had I known that that was an option, well, I would have written the most over-the-top, gratuitous, tear-jerking, and perhaps a tad manipulative memo to the jolly old elf. I just know it would have broken his heart and moved him to empty the contents of his magical sack right into my bed, bypassing the tree altogether.
Every Christmas Eve, my little heart would flutter as I lay awake in my excitement-fueled insomnia, dreaming of the gift-wrapped wonders that would await me on Christmas morn. And it would all be courtesy of that generous globetrotter named Santa.
But truth be told, it wasn’t really Santa that I loved. It wasn’t the prospect of seeing him that kept me awake. After all, I had absolutely no relationship with this stranger who dressed in the colours of the country that I would later call home.
I didn’t really love Santa Claus. I loved the promise of the presents he will deliver upon his arrival.
Promise.
That one word can fill our hearts with such hope. The promise of longed-for presents waiting to be unboxed. The promise of that week-long getaway after an exhausting season of work. The promise of that dream job or relief after a long bout of sickness.
But the word "promise" can also evoke unwelcome sorrow.
We sometimes say things like, "He had such promise" to speak of people who failed to live up to their potential. We sometimes find it hard to trust when people break their promises to us. And our hearts grieve that we, too, are promise-breakers, and we are more unfaithful than we cared to admit.
That is why Advent and Christmas have such power to stir our emotions like no other season.
For some, Advent promises a season of light, beckoning warm fires, family gatherings, and precious traditions. For others, Advent promises the advent of the cold, darkness, isolation, and depression.
But Advent exists because of the promises of the God who kept the most ancient and important promise ever made. In Genesis 3, he promised that an offspring of the woman would crush the head of the devil, that old serpent (Gen 3:15). That promise was fulfilled with the advent (from the Latin adventus, which means “arrival”) of God's promised Messiah who came to deliver his people from Satan, sin and sorrow. And Jesus promised a future return when he will finish his work of deliverance. And until that day, we cling to all God's promises in the power of the Spirit, whom Jesus calls the promise of the Father (Acts 1:4, 2:33).
In that sense, all that we do during Advent is an act of defiance. When we choose to sing, pray, come to church, and dare to laugh as we journey through a vale of tears, we are rejecting the false promises and lies of the dark kingdom, and boldly declaring that the Kingdom of Light is truly here. And one day, it will be fully here.
Church, will you join me this Advent season in raising up this defiant cry? Christ the Savior has come. He is coming again. And He is keeping every promise of the Father.
Moses