garage sales

Nothing Else Will Do

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I’m excited. My church is weeks away from moving to a permanent campus where everything will be brand new and shiny. I’m reminded of the metaphor Jesus used about believers being a city on a hill, because this new location is literally sitting on a hill over looking the intersection.

I’m super hyped, but I’m also smart enough to know that the honeymoon won’t last. More accurately, I’ve hopefully learned by now through lots of times where I got excited only to see the enthusiasm fade and normalcy fade in.

I can remember all those Christmas gifts that I was thrilled to get. I remember how I felt, but looking back, I can’t remember the specific gifts any more. They lost their luster and faded from my memory. Some of them even ended up in garage sales a few years later.

That’s how it goes with anything I set my heart on this side of eternity. Anything less than God won’t fill that God-shaped yearning in me. Or as C. S. Lewis put it, anything that isn’t eternal is eternally out of date and obsolete.

I look forward to our move-in date in late May. I hope I will always be grateful for this gracious gift on God’s part. But I know that at some point, it will be just a building. More than likely, it will require maintenance and updating and repairs. And at some point, it will be no more.

But what it represents and what our church is all about (and every true Bible-believing church is all about) won’t ever fade or get stolen or moth-eaten or rust. The hope of God-with-us revealed in Jesus will only get better and more wonderful and more glorious over time, past time, and into eternity.

Advent Is Here Again

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Advent

“‘Yes,’ said Queen Lucy. ‘In our world too, a stable once had something inside it that was bigger than our whole world’” (C. S. Lewis).

Advent means waiting. Not just waiting. It means waiting with expectation. When I think of the word, I think of me as a kid on Christmas Eve, so excited that I couldn’t fall asleep and feeling that the next morning couldn’t arrive fast enough.

Advent means a child awaiting the last day of school and the start of summer break. Or maybe that delicious feeling you get when you set out the driveway toward your vacation destination.

Sadly, most of the things I looked forward to so eagerly haven’t lived up to the hype. I can’t even remember most of the presents I was so anxious to open. Most of them probably ended up in garage sales or in Goodwill donation boxes.

However, the Advent is different. This present comes in a very small package. The infinite became an embryo and then, a helpless infant. God took on flesh and bone and became one of us. His coming meant the birth of hope, the birth of multiple second chances, and the birth of Love. Not sappy romantic love that fades over time, but real and true love that lays down its life for the beloved.

On a side note, if Advent does anything, it should make you look past the surface. It should make you look beyond appearances to what’s underneath. The Bible says that Jesus was nothing to look at (my very loose translation of Isaiah 53:2) but underneath was the salvation of all who put their trust in Him.

Lucy had it right. What was in that stable so long ago was bigger than the whole universe. What was dressed up in rags was worth more than all the universe and everything in it put together.

That’s what I’m waiting for.