Every year during the season of Advent I invite the children to come forward during the children’s message and we talk about the Advent wreath. Each Sunday we talk about the different candles and the meaning of each one. This year during the Wednesday services we will talk about the Advent wreath and what each candle represents, but we will do so for the rest of us, the adults of the congregation. We will learn to use the Advent Wreath in our own preparation to celebrate the greatest birth and gift to mankind.
We begin talking about the advent wreath by recognizing that it has a circular base reminding us that God is Eternal. Just as a circle has no beginning and no ending so our God has no beginning, He was not created and no ending, He is eternal. Indeed, as we know our God does not live in the past nor in the future, but He lives in the eternal present, as His name is I Am, thus we might use the circle to symbolize His eternal existence.
The greenery of the advent wreath reminds us that God is alive. As we might look at a lawn that is brown or a tree that has brown leaves and surmise that it is dead, so as we look at a green lawn or a green tree we might surmise that they are alive. So it is with God, the green of the Advent wreath reminds us that we worship, not a dead God, but a living God.
Even more, we worship a God who is not a myth nor a legend, but who is truly God, the Creator of all things. He is the author and perfecter of our faith. Not only is He the one true God, but He is a God who loves us, His creation, His creatures as it were such that He entered into our human, mortal world in order to redeem us, to buy us back after we fell into sin. Indeed, He is God who was truly an actual human being, born in time, in history. We have actual archeological proof of our God’s life while on this earth. And yet, even while we may visit the graves of those religious leaders who have lived and died, there is not grave to be found for our God, because He did not stay dead, but rose from the dead, victorious over sin, death and the devil.
God, who lives in the eternal present created us for a purpose, and I know you have heard me say it many times before, but I will say it again, God created us in order to love us. Those words are truly Gospel words. While there may be and are many who profess our need to do something for God, worship Him, praise Him, laud Him and so on, we know that God needs nothing from us. As Paul explained to the Athenians on Mars Hill, what does God who created all things need from us, His creatures. Indeed, we need everything from Him. He is the One who created us. He gives us life at conception, new life through the waters of Holy Baptism, forgiveness of sins through Holy Absolution and His body and blood in His Holy Supper. What we are born with and what we take with us when we pass on is all that is truly ours, which is nothing. Indeed, God created us to love us and give everything to us and needs nothing from us.
To suggest that God needs something from us, our obedience, our making a decision for Jesus, our choosing Him as our Savior, our worship, our praise, those demands are Law demands and are truly a misunderstanding of God, who He is and what He gives.
God created us to love us and God created heaven for us, for our eternal home. When God created all things out of nothing it was never His intent that any should perish, although having said that we do understand that since God lives in the eternal present, even before He began creating the world He already knew what was going to happen and yet even here we see His great love for us in that He created us anyway.
God’s plan from eternity was to create us so that we might be loved by Him. Hell was never a part of God’s plan. Hell was created as a result of the rebellion of Lucifer, the light bearer angel who rebelled against God and was cast out with all his followers.
God created man in His own image, that is sinless, perfect and holy. Lucifer, the father of lies who hates everything that is good and from God, entered and tempted Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve were created perfect and holy and did not know evil or sin. So, when Lucifer, Satan tempted them with the lie of knowing good and evil by disobeying God, which I guess was not a lie since before they did not know evil. They ate of the forbidden fruit and with that sin they brought sin and death, evil into a perfect world. God’s threat was if they ate of the fruit they would die, that is they would begin to die a physical death and, part from Him they would die and eternal death in hell.
Again, because God created us to love us He took care of man’s sin. God stepped in and promised a Savior, a Messiah, a Christ. At the same time, He did not give any indication as to when this would happen. And because the price for sin was death, human death for human sin, God’s promise of a Savior was the promise of a human as a substitute for Adam and Eve, for all mankind.
Just as through one man, Adam, sin entered the world, so through One Man, Jesus came forgiveness and eternal salvation. God, living in the eternal present knew what was going to happen. He knew man would sin. He knew He would have to save man. Because of His great love for us, because He created us to love us, He promised and did take care of our sin.
As we begin this Advent Season and as we rehearse the events that we celebrate, the Advent Wreath is a great visual reminder of God’s promises and His fulfillment of His promises. We being at the beginning, with the fact that God is eternal as visualized in the circular base of our wreath. And God is living as visualized in the green of our wreath. As we heard in our Scripture readings, “Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable”(Isaiah 40:28). “1Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever. 2Give thanks to the God of gods, for his steadfast love endures forever. 3Give thanks to the Lord of lords, for his steadfast love endures forever” (Psalm 136:1-3). “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand” (John 10:28).
God gives and we are given to. God does and we are done to. God gives life at conception. God gives new life, even eternal life and faith at our baptism. It is not that we have been baptized as in past tense, but we are baptized, present tense and are still baptized. God gives forgiveness through Holy Absolution as well as through His Holy Word, which is the power in Holy Absolution as well as in His Holy Supper. God gives strengthening of faith through His Word, as His Word is read and heard it gives the gifts of which it speaks. God gives us Jesus, His body and blood to eat and drink for forgiveness and strengthening through His Holy Supper. God gives life, eternal life and salvation.
And God gives us our response of faith. Indeed, as we keep hearing, God created us to loves us and He needs nothing from us but gives everything to us. Although we may understand God’s first command in the Garden of Eden was the obedience of Adam and Eve and even today demands our perfection, because He knows we are unable and cannot fulfill His demands, He sent Jesus to fulfill His demands for us in our place, as our substitute. And because He knows that in and of ourselves we are unable to respond to all His good gifts and blessings, He also stirs in us to respond. Just as when we are children we need to be taught to be thankful, so even God works such thankfulness in us. Thus, with the help and by the power of the Holy Spirit our response of faith is to live as priests in the priesthood of all believers, that is to live our lives as living sacrifice, serving God by our serving others in our vocations. Indeed, with the help and by the power of the Holy Spirit we live our lives to His glory, though this side of heaven that is still an imperfect living.
And so, we begin another Advent Season. In Old Testament times God required the children of Israel to celebrate several feast and festivals. He did this, required these celebrations so that they might not forget, but remember all that He had done for them and continued to do for them. Indeed, as we follow their history, we know they often failed miserably. Thus, although we fail miserably in our lives, and although the Lord does not require that we celebrate and hold certain festivals we understand the importance of our church year, our Advent and Lenten Seasons and the importance of celebrating, review and remembering so that we might never forget and so that we might be strengthened to face whatever there is to face in this world. As I have said before, do not begin celebrating Christmas just yet, wait until Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Until Christmas Eve and Day, use this season to prepare so that your celebration will be even more wonderful. And so that ultimately we may rejoice and say, to God be the glory, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
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