A 4-Week Advent Devotional
By: Aimee Joseph
By: Aimee Joseph
Introduction
While many of us are not familiar with the Liturgical Calendar, for many denominations and for most of the long history of the Church, it set the times and seasons of Church and even home life. The Liturgical Calendar is broken up into six main seasons: Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, and Pentecost, following the life of Christ our Lord. It is a way of keeping Christ the center of our lives in a world where, internally and externally, other lesser things fight to take center stage.
Advent is a season of waiting and meditation in which we align ourselves with centuries upon centuries of God’s people waiting for their Savior. The word Advent literally means arrival or coming. This unique season of intentionality prepares and primes our hearts to celebrate the unthinkable condescension of the Second Person of the Trinity.
All kinds of names ring in our ears and circulate in our minds during the holiday season. Our children’s heads are full of Kris Kringle, Santa Claus, Frosty the Snowman, and the name of elves on shelves. Our adult minds are taken up with shopping lists and the scores of names with which we address our holiday cards. Advent provides a chance to recenter our hearts on Christ, the name that is above every other name.
In Philippians 2, the Apostle Paul reminds us of the long journey of Christ that led to His being given the name above every other name. In this journey, the Second Person of the Trinity, who was co-equal with God and by whom the world was created, became an unnamed embryo in the womb of a young, poor mother.
He was given the name Jesus by his father, Joseph, who learned the name by the angel Gabriel. During his lifetime, he was likely called many names, some sweet nicknames by those who loved him and some derogatory names by those who did not understand him or his life’s work. While his disciples called him rabboni which means teacher, the jealous Pharisees called him a heretic.
Peter was the first of the disciples to publicly name him as the Messiah, the long promised and awaited One sent from God. Above his wounded head on the Cross hung the inscription INRI (Iesus Nazarenus Rex Ludaeorum: Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews), a name intended as ridicule but declared true in the Resurrection.
C.S. Lewis writes the following regarding the long journey of Christ from the heights of Heaven to the earth and back again.
“In the Christian story God descends to re-ascend. He comes down; down from the heights of absolute being into time and space, down into humanity...He had created. But He goes down to come up again and bring the whole world up with Him. One has the picture of a strong man stooping lower and lower to get himself underneath some great complicated burden. He must stoop in order to life, he must almost disappear under the load before he incredibly straightens his back and marches off with the whole mass swaying on his shoulders."
This Advent devotional will walk us through a four-week study on the various names and titles given to Jesus. It is my prayer that as we devote time to digging into the life and work of the person of Christ, we will join the Apostle Paul in his proud declaration:
“Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father!” (Philippians 2:9-11)
Advent is a season of waiting and meditation in which we align ourselves with centuries upon centuries of God’s people waiting for their Savior. The word Advent literally means arrival or coming. This unique season of intentionality prepares and primes our hearts to celebrate the unthinkable condescension of the Second Person of the Trinity.
All kinds of names ring in our ears and circulate in our minds during the holiday season. Our children’s heads are full of Kris Kringle, Santa Claus, Frosty the Snowman, and the name of elves on shelves. Our adult minds are taken up with shopping lists and the scores of names with which we address our holiday cards. Advent provides a chance to recenter our hearts on Christ, the name that is above every other name.
In Philippians 2, the Apostle Paul reminds us of the long journey of Christ that led to His being given the name above every other name. In this journey, the Second Person of the Trinity, who was co-equal with God and by whom the world was created, became an unnamed embryo in the womb of a young, poor mother.
He was given the name Jesus by his father, Joseph, who learned the name by the angel Gabriel. During his lifetime, he was likely called many names, some sweet nicknames by those who loved him and some derogatory names by those who did not understand him or his life’s work. While his disciples called him rabboni which means teacher, the jealous Pharisees called him a heretic.
Peter was the first of the disciples to publicly name him as the Messiah, the long promised and awaited One sent from God. Above his wounded head on the Cross hung the inscription INRI (Iesus Nazarenus Rex Ludaeorum: Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews), a name intended as ridicule but declared true in the Resurrection.
C.S. Lewis writes the following regarding the long journey of Christ from the heights of Heaven to the earth and back again.
“In the Christian story God descends to re-ascend. He comes down; down from the heights of absolute being into time and space, down into humanity...He had created. But He goes down to come up again and bring the whole world up with Him. One has the picture of a strong man stooping lower and lower to get himself underneath some great complicated burden. He must stoop in order to life, he must almost disappear under the load before he incredibly straightens his back and marches off with the whole mass swaying on his shoulders."
This Advent devotional will walk us through a four-week study on the various names and titles given to Jesus. It is my prayer that as we devote time to digging into the life and work of the person of Christ, we will join the Apostle Paul in his proud declaration:
“Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father!” (Philippians 2:9-11)