Advent While Suffering-

With God’s help, we remember.

Advent is a special time for individual families and for our covenant church families as well. The decorations, the music, the lights, the nativity scenes all invoke a true thrill in the air. But seasons of joy are often accompanied by seasons of affliction and loss. Difficult times financially, long-suffering in cancer, and impending or tragic loss of a loved one can take one’s breath away and cause us to feel hopeless.

Stephanie Hubach writes in Same Lake, Different Boat that we live in an abnormal world marred by sin, and in this abnormal world, disability is a normal part. Additionally, I will add that seasons of affliction, suffering, and hurt are also normal parts of our abnormal world. In verse three of Isaac Watt’s “Joy to the World,” we sing “No more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground; He comes to make His blessings flow far as the curse is found, far as the curse is found, far as, far as the curse is found.” Sin and its effects permeate all of life, all of this world, all of us humans. Jesus came to bring us great hope and undeserved blessings to the extent that our sin vastly and greatly affects our lives. Paul David Tripp says of this verse that (God’s) ”redemption mission is as complete as sin’s destruction is comprehensive.” Jesus came to earth to rescue and redeem a people for Himself, to defeat death, hell, sin and the grave, to make all things new, and to glorify God the Father. And since we live in an abnormal world, change, hurt, and hard times are a very normal part of our whole existence. This reality doesn’t make our painful seasons easier, but resting in this unwavering biblical truth can be a healing salve to our weary souls.

So, how do we rejoice in the truth of the gospel during Advent when life seems almost unbearable? With God’s help we remember. First Corinthians 15:1-2 says, “Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.” When the tragic news of loss, illness, or burden stares us in the face and life as we know it has changed forever or just for a season, we must preach the gospel to ourselves and our families.  We must hold fast to the promises God has for us in Jesus. The hope we have in Jesus can be held firm and unwavering because He is unchanging. Hebrews 13:8 says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” We can remember together as a family when driving to school, sitting at the dinner table, and tucking our children in bed. Keep it simple. Find one verse to “play on repeat” as you walk the daily routine amidst this season of affliction.

With God’s help, we remember. It’s so difficult to press on when the here and now seems so bleak, so exhausting, so daunting. But the promise of redemption, resurrection, hope, and comfort in Christ is real; it’s true; it’s firm; it’s sure. The sweet truths found in the lyrics of “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” resonate in our weary souls: “O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel, that mourns in lonely exile here, until the Son of God appear.” Because God always keeps His promises as revealed in Christ’s birth, we can have a sure hope in affliction as we walk with our families through the Advent season. Then verse five of this carol reads, “O come, thou Key of David, come and open wide our heavenly home; make safe the way that leads on high, and close the path to misery.” The path of misery is closed because Jesus obeyed perfectly, fulfilled all the prophesies from old, and completed the work God the Father set before Him. Because Jesus came to earth, our broken relationship with God the Father has been fixed. We can now have hope in this life because there’s more to this life awaiting us in Christ!

With God’s help, we remember. Our dear Savior is making intercession for us, in the mundane and in the painful. Isaiah 53:12 says, “Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the many, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong, because He poured out His soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet He bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.” Jesus lives to make intercession for us because He’s faithful, He’s completed the work, and He’s made a way for us to have hope in this world corrupted by our own sin. Go to Jesus in earnest prayer. He hears you. He’s walked the pains you are walking and wept just as you are weeping.

“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.  For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18).

With God’s help, we remember. Whether celebrating through the suffering or the mundane, we remember God is a covenant-keeping God, and our hope is placed squarely on the fulfilled promise of Jesus’s birth! “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise Him, my salvation and my God” (Psalm 42:5-6a).