By R. Kevin Johnson
My friend Ray is a pastor who tells a story about an encounter he had with a visitor to his church office. The man started with, “Pastor, I need your help. I think I’ve made a mistake!”
“Well, calm down and tell me what you did,” Ray replied.
“Oh I cheated on my wife,” said the man.
“You cheated on your wife?” the pastor asked. “That’s not a mistake. A mistake is when you’re doing long division and you forget to carry a digit. A mistake is something you can fix with an eraser! When you fall into sin you need much more than an eraser — you need a Redeemer!”
I think about this story every time the season of Advent rolls around on the Christian calendar. Many times, in modern culture, Christians lose their way and become comfortable understating the significance or seriousness of sin. It is important for me to remember that God provided his Son, Jesus, to be much more than a magic eraser that rubs out wrongdoing. Jesus is, indeed, the Redeemer who liberates us from our sin, whose coming was foretold by the prophets in advance of his birth, and whose second coming we await with anticipation. That reality is the Christian hope on which the door of salvation is hinged.
The Christian hope is based on God’s ultimate promise in Christ — a promise fulfilled in the birth of a Savior who lived to die. It is a promise that gave us the Savior who became sin for us and shouldered our load. God’s promise is sealed by Christ’s resurrection and ascension. God did what he said he would do, and now we wait for this Savior’s second Advent.
Our hope depends upon the lordship of Christ in our lives. When we make Jesus the Lord of our lives, the Lord of our homes, the Lord of our work, the Lord of all things concerning us, we allow him to control the future and we trust that he will bring us to his intended destination. Our eternal future rests in the hands of Christ. It is wonderful to live at peace because we know that our eternity is secure in Christ. It is wonderful to share the joy of our salvation with those closest to us and to be able to encourage one another in the mutual hope we have in Christ.
Advent, then, is a penitential season — a season when we Christians can examine ourselves and focus on our respective spiritual journeys. In the sanctuaries of most churches , the altar cloths and ministers’ stoles during this season are purple to recall these themes and to signify the coming of the King of Kings.
Our Advent wreaths are aglow with candles. The first — lighted this past Sunday — represents the hope that God has and will fulfill his promises to us through Jesus. The second reminds worshipers of the peace that came with Jesus at his birth and will be eternally present when he comes again. The third burns for the joy that consumed Mary’s soul when she became aware that she would give birth to the Messiah. The fourth signifies the remarkable love of God who sacrificed his son for the sins of humanity.
Advent is a season of both preparation and repentance. Christians are not only preparing for the celebration of the birth of a Savior. We are also preparing ourselves to stand before Christ at his second coming with pure hearts, clean minds, and blameless spirits.
I love to revisit the prophetic verses that we hear during this season of Advent. They tell us that we have all gone astray — we have turned to our own way of thinking and doing. Because of that, we need a Savior. We need the one who came to turn us back toward what is true, what is right, and what is holy. We need one who was willing to suffer for us and to take our sin upon himself. We need the one who was willing to be broken so that we could be whole. We need Jesus.
As we prepare to celebrate the birth of the Messiah, may we all be reminded that while Jesus was “wounded for our iniquities” and “bruised for our transgressions,” he is nevertheless just fine now. He is the risen Savior who conquered death that we might live and he desires a relationship with each of us. He is, indeed, much more than an eraser.