Sterling House Advent Devotional

     Each Fifth Tuesday of the month (so not so often) I give a devotional at Sterling House Senior Living. Tomorrow is a fifth Tuesday and, though it is a long post, here is my Advent devotional:

     Often the emphases in popular Christian thought seem to crowd out the emphases that seemed to explain it all just a few years ago. Each explains scripture, tells us how to grow, and how to live. Some emphases come back around so don’t seem to. In the midst of all of this there are so many beautiful insights into the life of faith. It always gives me a little shudder of excitement when I pick up a book on living the Christian life from a different time and that book speaks directly to the questions that I have been asking this week.  This week I picked up a 48 year old book—eleven years older than I am—and had this experience. I remember many of the times between then and now and it was a different time but its themes could have been written this year.

     I have been impressed with the character of God in recent months. In particular, I have been impressed by the way that God lays down himself in love. Each person of the Trinity defers to the other. God, in Christ lays down his life for the other—for creation. This is the reality behind creation and redemption and we don’t really get it until we understand that this is the reality. We always wonder what laying ourselves down gains for us. In the character of God this deferring of self for the other seems to be basic. It is not a means to another end. It simply is. It is what God calls us to be for its own sake and do not simply as an exercise that achieves God’s higher purposes.

     Since we are at the beginning of Advent, I am reflecting on this idea and this chapter from Ivan Anson Beals’ 1963 book Communion With Christ (Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City) in light of the Christmas event. At the Cross Christ lays himself down for others but it is not only in the cross. The whole pattern of Christ’s life can be described as laying himself down for others…for God the Father, for God the Spirit, for the lost sheep of Israel, for his followers, for the lost sinner…

     Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Philippians 3:5-11 NKJV

Though God, Christ laid his honor aside for the lost. The Father deferred honor that he might have received and gave it to the Son. Jesus receives that honor in such a way that directs honor to the Father. And this is the way we should be—the mind that we should have.

     The birth of Jesus is one picture of this. Laying aside the honor of being God for the sake of others. To bring redemption to the lost. To bring glory to God. Because that is who Jesus is. That is what God does.

     Here are some passages from Communion with Christ.

     To sacrifice self and self-interest for the profit of others is to effectually shew forth the Lord’s death till He come. Only then do we exhibit the great principle which animated His death [His life, and even His birth]. Only then is the full purpose of communion with Christ realized. In this regard the word ‘sacramental’ must be understood to mean the real presence of Christ being conveyed unto others through the elements of speech and every facet of the whole life of the Christian.

     We are to confess with every part of us that Christ has come in the flesh—not only historically as an individual but that He has taken residence in our flesh. Therefore every activity of our lives should testify of Jesus Christ and our relationship to Him and He abides within the frame of our flesh.

     We cannot be sacramental disciples until we deliberately lay ourselves in the altar of the Cross. Here we are to give ourselves over decisively and completely to actually become what we are potentially in the sight of God—unified members of the body of Christ. Thus our devotional lives should lead us to identify ourselves with God’s interests, and His interests are in other lives also…He expects us to identify ourselves with His interest in others.

     When one lays himself on the altar of the Cross, all consciousness of self disappears, and all consciousness of what he is doing for God or of what God is doing through him disappears also. All excellence of self loses distinguishment in relation to the radiant brilliance of the excellency of Christ. There should be no place for any feeling of self-satisfaction on our part with regard to religious experience…Thus the only possibility of our expression of sacramental service is for us to endure a death to self…Therefore, ‘he must increase, but I must decrease’ (John 3:30)…We must put to death the things within us that are not of God…He does not just say, ‘Let him give up sin’; most men are more willing to give up sinning than self. But Jesus includes self: ‘Let him deny himself.’ [Rom 12]

     This kind of service is the high type of service in which Jesus gave himself on our behalf…We, in love, are to determinedly relate ourselves to Christ by communion with Him, so that we are moved only by the things that appeal to Him. Only then are we interested in doing things with which He is associated. Thus, unless we are willing to give up the right to ourselves, unless we are willing to give up what we consider to be the good and legitimate things in favor of Christ, we have not comprehended who He is, nor have we understood His salvation plan…If we cannot give up our best for Him, all our words concerning our love for Him are meaningless. For it is the essential nature of love even in the natural life to give its best.

     The sacrifice of ourselves to Jesus Christ is a crisis act, but its unfolding is a progressive experience. Many unknown interests may arise in our lives, and our sacrifice to Him is a continuous, living one. An up-to-date experience involves up-to-date sacrifice, our ready consent to continually give up our right to ourselves to Christ…His presence flowing through the common elements of our lives.

     Such a disposition is not part of our natural birth, bit it becomes a part of us as we obey the wooings of the Holy Spirit…Our fellowship [with Christ] is deepened only as we also partake of Him in Spirit, allowing the Holy Spirit to come and sanctify us wholly…Communion with Christ is more than a physical sacrament; it is a life of fellowship that crystallizes into service. As the ritual of Communion [and for that matter, His birth] is Christ’s physical testimony to us, so our lives are a physical witness of Him to an unbelieving world.

     A hungering and thirsting for the Lord should permeate all our thoughts of life. Then, like-mindedness with Christ shall dominate any desire for communion, and it will confirm every gesture of service. Apart from Christ we are nothing. Without his life we are dead.

     This all brings me to want to worship the Christ-child all the more this season. I want to confess that Christ has come in the flesh not only in speech and song but with all I am and do. I want to exalt the radiant brilliance of Christ. I want to bow at His manger even as he divests himself of glory for my sake. I want to take His purposes as my purposes. I want to hunger for His will, His heart, and His mission. I want to do this once and for all. I want to do it continually in the most mundane parts of my life and in the most painful and darkest places of the lives of those to whom Jesus is reaching. I want His presence to flow through the common elements of my days. As God is born in human likeness so that I might become more I want to become less that Christ might become more.

So, I am joyful as I look with feverous anticipation for the celebration of His coming. I am joyful as I look with expectancy and hope for His coming again. Come, Thou long expected Jesus!