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This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastors Ben Cline, Johnathan Hernandez, and Gary Schick.
Gary Schick
Good to be back with you listeners, and perhaps some of you are doing a little traveling over the last week, and I hope that you made it safely home as we are recording this morning. It is a cold one out there, and maybe it will be on Friday when this airs. But anyway, we kind of have something that we're gonna, I think, hold until January. We're just, really getting in the Christmas Spirit and thought we would take a turn onto some of the, from a Christian perspective, the themes of the season. And take a little bit of a look at, what are called the themes of advent, I guess you might say. So, we come from three different backgrounds, and I know our listeners come from a lot of Christian backgrounds and some of you out there have grown up with something called Advent. And I would guess, just by our conversation right beforehand that all three of us, none of us actually probably grew up with it. I did not....we did not grow up with it. I have served in churches that didn't know what Advent was. I have served in churches where this is a big part of what we do---and I have found---and currently I'm serving in a church where it's not a big part of what we do, but it is something we kind of follow through the month of December. "Bring the kids up for a few minutes as we light some candles and talk about their significance." Of course, this is not found anywhere in scripture, but the themes that we talk about are found in scripture. And so, the very first one, and I guess there's different ways to approach Advent too, but the first one, I think universally, is the prophecy candle that talks about our hope as Christians. And Jonathan, could you get us rolling on it?
Jonathan Hernandez
Yeah, definitely. So, like Pastor Gary was saying, I didn't grow up with, you know, going through the Advent season. And I serve in a church that we don't really have it. I've never had it, I've never done it, I guess, since I've served there. And even as going to the church there, we didn't serve, or we didn't go through this process. But it's exciting to dive in and kind of learn and see what this looks like. And so the first candle is a prophecy candle of hope. And so in ancient times God gave His people, Israel, hope by speaking to them through the prophets. And, you know, we see this all throughout the Old Testament, and how the prophets spoke and gave the word to look at for forward. He revealed what was to come and told of the great blessings that they would receive when Jesus, the Messiah, would dwell amongst them. And the people look forward to the coming of their Messiah, and the hope that was spoken into this. We find that same hope when we read through the words of the prophet. And hopefully as you guys read through those, you can feel that hope building up within you. We find that, like I said, we find that same hope, Christ has come and our hope is in Him. "We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul," this is Hebrews 6:19, "a hope that is eternal." And so during this week, we get that opportunity to reflect on the hope of Christ. We see what the Old Testament had spoken of the coming Messiah, and then we get to see the actual coming of the Messiah. You know, as we celebrate Christmas here, you could look at the prophecy of Isaiah 7:14. "Therefore, the Lord Himself shall give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Emmanuel." And then we see the fulfillment of that in Matthew 1:23, "Behold, a virgin shall be with child and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel," which being translated is, "God with us." And so that's kind of, you know, like I said, I have to really dig in to see what the Advent season is. And so that's kind of where my study is, I guess, so far has gotten me.
Ben Cline
Yeah, I also grew up in a church that didn't really, we didn't really know what Advent was. I think I'm sure that my pastor probably knew what it was, but we never really celebrated it, you know, in any way, shape or form. And so we weren't taught about it. But, you know, in recent years, the church that I serve at currently, we have some years, gone through the Advent season. Some years, not gone through it. But I wanted to kind of, like you were saying Jonathan, kind of dig into that this year and, you know, take some time to think about what it symbolizes and what it reminds us of. And, you know, thinking of the topic of hope, if you do a word study for hope in scripture, oh wow, it's gonna be a long word study, right? And it's a very large topic in the scriptures, and so it's an exciting thing for us to remember. And I guess the question that I always start off with when I'm talking to somebody about hope is, you know, there's a different understanding, I think, of that word hope in the world versus, you know, from what the Bible teaches about it. And so, you know what I guess the question is: what is biblical hope? You know, it is not the same kind of thing that we talk about when we say, "I hope that something happens," or "I hope that I get this thing," or whatever. And even going into the Christmas season, that's maybe something that we hear a lot as well. What do you hope that you get for Christmas? It's a wish, right? Yeah, it's something that, you know, we really just wish for. And it's not based on anything that we know for certain. And I guess that's the difference between worldly hope and biblical hope, is that the hope that we have is based on things that are certain. And the hope that we have is because of what certainly happened. And it's interesting, you were talking about Hebrews 11 as we were kind of talking before we started recording this morning. And the first verse in that says, "Now, faith is being sure of what we hope for, and certain of what we do not see." You know, and so you can go through and you can do a, a study of that word, hope, and find all sorts of things in scripture about what biblical hope actually is. And the first thing that I would say, is that biblical hope is deeply tied to faith. You know, our hope in being certain of what we do not see is deeply tied to the faith that we have in God, and deeply tied to the faith that we have in the promises that He's made to us in scripture. And so, you know, if you look at the Greek, if you look at those, the definition of the word, hope, it has behind it this idea of certain expectation. Which, you know, if you're hoping for a pony for Christmas, it's not the same kind of certain expectation. But if you have placed your faith in Jesus Christ as your savior, you have that certain expectation that you will spend eternity with Him forever. And that you are now adopted as one of His children, that you are a co-heir, you know, of the Father with Jesus Christ. And so, you know, there's all these things that we can place that certain expectation into, and that's just the word that we call, hope. So those are some of the things that I was thinking about. Just getting started off with that theme of hope for Advent.
Gary Schick
Yup, and good things to think about. You know, as I think about these things, these are Christmas traditions. And I don't know about your families, I grew up in a family where it was pretty bare bones. Christmas morning, opening gifts...most of the time. I think, yeah, most years we would read the Christmas story together. Now, my current family, it seems like every year we're adding on some new Christmas tradition, you know? It's starting off with Christmas Eve: we all open one present, and it's a big surprise! It's always Christmas pajamas and a big surprise, we put them on and there'll be a game. And we go around in our Christmas pajamas, driving around looking at Christmas lights. So, if you see some people in pajamas on Christmas Eve, it's probably the Schick family and their dogs are with them in the vehicle. And that is just one of what has become many. But, you can kind of understand when the date of Christmas was somewhat set. And of course, there is a little difference. Most of the western Church, essentially, celebrates Christmas, December 25th. The Orthodox East celebrates, I think a little bit later. We'll probably hit that in January. What's the difference there? But in any case, think about the time of year we're heading into. Think about what this time of year would be without Christmas. The days are dark, long, cold. And so what do people start to do? They start to light fire to keep them warm. And so here is a time in the church when things are gloomy, dark and cold, where people would light a candle and begin to think about the biblical expectation that we have in Christ. And as we approach the day that we celebrate His birth, we don't know exactly. I think there's some ideas when He may have been born, but the 25th is just kind of what we've settled on. It's a great way, I think, to kind of get our minds a little bit back in what it might have been like for the people of the Old Testament past. You know, Peter talks about the prophets of old, longed to look into the things that we now celebrate, you know, who Christ is. So, I'll get up on Sunday and read for example, "for as we light this candle about hope and prophecy," to read just a few verses like you did. About, you know, from Isaiah 7, "the Virgin will be with child," or this Sunday, it wasn't actually part of that, but just part of my message, cause I actually am going through Hebrews 11. Where in Isaiah 9, it talks about, "For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders and he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." What must it have been like for Isaiah to write that and then to just wonder, "who is this? Who is this gonna be?" You know? And of course, we know it's Jesus, but to just be looking for, and you know what? In a sense, we are with those saints, those Old Testament people in the sense that they were looking forward to Christ. We're looking back on his first coming, but we are also waiting with eager expectation and confident hope. I love the way you talked about that Ben, looking forward to His return. You know, the world is still a dark place, and yet we have this light burning within us: Jesus! This hope, and we have this assurance that He is coming again. He is going to set the world right. And for those who put their hope in Him, there is all of the eternal joy to come. What a great thing to focus our minds on in the hurry and the busyness. In the dark and the cold and the slippery and the wet! But yet, as Christians, let's be out there with hope, and we're gonna talk about some other great things: peace and joy and all the things that we associate with Jesus and His coming. But today, it's on hope. Hey, thanks listeners for being part of this with us. And again, where where are you at today? Maybe you're not feeling hopeful. Maybe there's some pretty heavy burdens on your shoulders. Maybe there's some recent grief in your life, or even past grief that's still pretty heavy in your heart. I just encourage you to open up the word go back to the promises that look forward to Jesus and just be reminded of all that is ours in Him. What a great hope wishing you that today.