I preached through the Old Testament this year. From January to September, we followed a chronological Bible and tried to capture the gist of the story week by week.
Preaching through the Bible this way is quite the ride. You see wave after wave of hope followed by disappointment. God creates the world; the first humans sin. God picks Noah for a fresh start; Noah gets drunk right off the boat. God picks Abraham and promises to bless the world through him; Abraham and his family stumble from calamity to calamity. And so the story goes for hundreds of years, with some ups and many downs.
The story of the Hebrews Scriptures is the story of God’s patience with his wayward people.
By the time we get to the end of the chronological sequence of events, we discover some hope. Ezra and Nehemiah lead In rebuilding and revival. But in Nehemiah 13, things come crashing down again. Nehemiah takes a tour of the city and discovers that some people haven’t kept their covenant vows. They renege on every promise they made. He finds the same old problems: the temple being misused; a lack of financial support for the temple; temple priests abandoning their posts to earn a living to survive; the Sabbath being broken; and intermarriage with people who didn’t believe in God.
At the end of the Hebrew Scriptures, it’s hard to feel hopeful. Despite God’s faithfulness, God’s people just can’t get it right.
Then, 400 years later, Jesus arrives and changes everything.
Honestly, preaching the Hebrew Scriptures for 38 weeks in a row makes you ready for Jesus. You’re ready for the one person in Scripture who is faithful from beginning to end. You’re ready for the promises to come true, for the types to be fulfilled. When we turn the page and read these words, “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham,” you think, “It’s about time. This story is about to get a whole lot better.”
The arrival of Jesus marks the first time the pattern of hope followed by disappointment is changed. That pattern would have continued had Jesus not arrived.
I finally understand why Christians have used the time before Christmas to long for the second coming of Jesus. Sometimes it still feels like we’re still caught in the same cycle of hope followed by disappointment. The world’s a mess. Life is hard. Churches are imperfect. And we know what it’s like to struggle with our own tendency to sin. No matter how good life gets, things come crashing down.
But then Jesus will come again, and we’ll say, “It’s about time. This story is about to get a whole lot better.”
On Christmas morning, I’ll think about how Jesus has already interrupted the never-ending cycle of hope followed by disappointment the first time. And I’ll also look forward to when this cycle will not only be interrupted but broken.
If you, like me, feel caught in this perpetual cycle, then it’s time to celebrate the first coming of Jesus. And it’s time to long for this second coming too. Jesus comes at exactly the right time. I can’t wait.