As beautiful as Advent season can be, it often finds us busy and distracted with the commercial season of holiday shopping and party planning. To be sure, the gifts and the parties are not the problems. The problem is that our hearts are drawn to the allure of more things and distracted by the season's busyness. The solution to our busyness and preoccupation during Advent is to carve out time solely dedicated to treasuring Jesus above all things—to consider the promise of His coming, the wonder of His birth, and the significance of the incarnation alongside the hope and anticipation of His second coming. To help us do that, we will consider the four themes associated with the Advent wreath–hope, faith, joy, and peace. For the next four Sundays and on Christmas Eve, we will look at these themes in light of Jesus' first coming and His second coming.

This past Sunday, the first Sunday in Advent, we lit the first purple candle to celebrate HOPE; this is also called the "Prophet's Candle," and it represents the hope we have in Jesus

because of His first and second coming. We looked at the promise of hope in Isaiah 9. We saw that our hope is secure because of God's faithfulness, our hope is real in the face of darkness, and our hope finds itself in the person of Jesus.

God faithfully provided a savior in our darkness through his son Jesus to provide hope of eternal life. We celebrate Advent during the darkest part of the year, the winter solstice, to remind us that hope dawns in the darkness through Jesus.

Resources:

• To Us a Child is Born - Desiring God

• The Church Needs Advent - Robin Ham

• Weary World Rejoices - Melissa Kruger

Reflection Questions:

• How does Advent help us to celebrate the first coming of Jesus but also long for His second coming?

• How can you carve out time this Advent season to reflect on the hope that we have in Jesus?