We interrupt our Advent meditations for a special announcement:

Death doesn’t take a vacation during Advent.

We’re in that season of looking forward to the First Advent. We actually live in the season of looking forward to the Second Advent, which carries this promise:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” (Revelation 21.1 – 5, ESV, emphasis mine)

The implication is clear: until the former things have passed away, and Jesus makes all things new, there is death, mourning, crying, and pain.

I write this because of soccer sportswriter Grant Wahl who died suddenly in Qatar during the last part of the Argentina / Netherlands game during the World Cup of soccer. It’s especially poignant because, since Grant was a sportswriter, we have some of his last words. I report here from an excellent article at ESPN.

Wahl was covering his eighth World Cup. He wrote Monday on his website that he had visited a medical clinic in Qatar.

“My body finally broke down on me. Three weeks of little sleep, high stress and lots of work can do that to you. What had been a cold over the last 10 days turned into something more severe on the night of the USA-Netherlands game, and I could feel my upper chest take on a new level of pressure and discomfort.“

Bob’s note: The World Cup started with one game on November 20, three games on November 21, and after that, there were four games per day through December 2. Then two games per day December 3 – 6. There were no games on December 7 and 8. He said he rested on the 8th, but he was back to work on the 9th. He died late in the second game. Grant’s words continue:

“I didn’t have Covid (I test regularly here), but I went into the medical clinic at the main media center today, and they said I probably have bronchitis. They gave me a course of antibiotics and some heavy-duty cough syrup, and I’m already feeling a bit better just a few hours later. But still: No bueno.

“I basically canceled everything on this Thursday that I had, and napped and I’m doing slightly better that you can probably tell in my voice that I’m not at it at 100 percent here. Hopefully I will not cough during this podcast. I’m coughing a lot. Everyone’s coughing here in like this is by no means limited to me like so many journalists have got a crazy cough. It sounds like a death rattle sometimes.

“The only thing that’s surprising to me actually is there isn’t that much COVID here. I thought there might be a real issue with that. We’re not really seeing COVID cases. We’re just seeing a lot of general sickness, coughing, colds, and I can’t wait to be on the other side of what I have. But I am going to be ready to go. I’m attending on Friday.”

“I’m ready to go. I’m attending on Friday,” and while “attending,” – read, “working” – he died. There are worse ways to go, to be sure, but it gives one pause. One day he’s at his place in the press box and the next day, they’ve set up a memorial to him in that place. Maybe if Grant had exercised moderation in his last days, he’d still be with us. We don’t know.

It’s not just the famous. June was talking with her friend Sarah at a social function Wednesday, making plans to get together in January to talk about June’s helping her sub as an organist for a local church. Thursday, Sarah had a stroke. Friday, she was gone.

And it’s not just the elderly and overworked. Just this morning we got word that the 16-year-old grandson of long-time friends of ours was killed in an automobile accident. A lady in her 70s, a 48-year-old sportswriter, and a 16-year-old high school student. Death is no respecter of age or persons.

No one can control the wind or lock it in a box. No one has any say-so regarding the day of death. (Ecclesiastes 8.8, MSG)

But we celebrate Advent, when Jesus came as a human being subject to death in order to destroy death:

Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, (Hebrews 2.14, NKJV)

It’s the Third Sunday of Advent: Joy, or as the picture has it, Rejoice!

Again, it’s a word that’s been there from the beginning:

In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.” (Luke 1.39 – 44, ESV)

And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people…” (Luke 2.10, ESV)

All the people? All the people: Jews, Gentiles, rich, poor, men, women, slave, free. That’s worth getting excited about…I’m included! And you are, too!!

So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3.26 – 28, NIV)

Yesterday, we reminded ourselves that Jesus’ second coming with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God is way different from his first coming as a baby. I had a friend who presented the gospel that way: “When Jesus comes back, he’s going to be angry!”

However, in all fairness, Paul’s description of the second coming was not given as a gospel presentation to unbelievers but as an encouragement for believers. Jesus, describing his mission by quoting from Isaiah 61 deliberately stopped before the judgment sentence:

He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4.16 – 19, NIV)

The next phrase in Isaiah 61.1, 2 from where Jesus quotes is: …And the day of vengeance of our God. But Jesus doesn’t mention that part…yet. We’re between the first and second Advents – the “day.”

As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world. (John 9.4, 5, NIV)

And the “works” are clear:

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. (Luke 4.19, NIV)

We’re celebrating Advent, but in the process of thinking about Jesus’ first coming, we don’t want to lose sight of the second. My late friend Pat Mioulis in Montgomery, Alabama, used to share the gospel this way:

You know, Jesus came to earth and died for our sins that we might be forgiven and live with him forever. It’s a great offer, and you ought to take it. Why? Because Jesus is coming back, and when he does, he’s going to be angry! – The gospel as shared by my friend Pat

Really, Pat? Isn’t that a little harsh? Let’s see how the Apostle Paul tells it. Paul speaks of the second coming a lot in his two letters to the Thessalonians. Here’s how it comes out in 2 Thessalonians 1, which opens:

We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing. Therefore we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring. (2 Thessalonians 1.3, 4, ESV)

Paul praised the people for:

• Growing faith
• Increasing love
• Steadfastness and faith in persecutions and afflictions

Imagine a tiny community of believers in the middle of pagan Rome. It was tough to be a Christian in those days! So Paul encourages them with a bit of news about the second coming:

This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering— since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. (2 Thessalonians 1.5 – 8, ESV, emphasis mine)

So Pat was right: Jesus comes back with his mighty angels inflicting vengeance.

But there’s more to the story, stay tuned.

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace. (2 Peter 3.10 – 14, ESV)

Let’s say you’re a leader…in the church, in your home, at your job, on your team… How do you lead? It turns out there’s not a one-size-fits-all answer, and it goes all the way back at least to Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians:

And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. (1 Thessalonians 5.14, ESV)

I love this verse:

• Admonish the idle
• Encourage the fainthearted
• Help the weak

Be patient with them all.

And it takes wisdom to discern between the idle who need admonishment, the fainthearted who need encouragement, and the weak who need help. The symptoms are the same: they’re not doing anything! But why?

• The idle are just lazy. Admonish them.
• The fainthearted could do something productive, but they’re afraid. Encourage them.
• The weak can’t. Help them.

Get these mixed up, and our admonishments, encouragements, and help are misdirected.

When I served at an Air Force leadership school, we taught The Hershey-Blanchard Situational Leadership Model.

Basically, the model starts with, say, raw recruits, or a new hire, or any situation where people don’t know what they’re supposed to do or how to do it, S1 on the chart. The appropriate behavior is “highly directive” with little encouragement “supportive” leadership. You can’t encourage someone to do what they can’t do. You have to show them what to do and how. After they get going, then you can add encouragement to keep them going, S2. Then it often happens, when the task or job has lost its novelty, people can do it, they just don’t want to, S3.

Combining Situational Leadership with 1 Thessalonians 5.14, you can’t encourage someone to do something they can’t do. That’s applying an S2 solution to an S1 problem. Encouragement for those who are idle is applying an S2 solution to an S3 problem. In summary:

• S1: weak, untrained. Train them. Help them.
• S2: they’ve started, keep them going. Encourage them.
• S3: they’ve lost interest. Admonish them.

This puts “help the weak” in a new light. There may be some weak who need perpetual help. But it makes more sense to think of weak as people who are unskilled, and untrained. Marine recruits are “weak” when they show up. At the end of the 12 weeks, they’re not weak anymore. Help the weak be strong…by training!

Teaching Time with God comes to mind. First, we help them by teaching a method. The task itself motivates them. “I’m meeting with God!” Then, we encourage them to keep going. There will usually be a time when they know how to do it, but life gets in the way (Mark 4.18, 19). Those are the ones we admonish.

And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. (1 Thessalonians 5.14, ESV)

Yesterday we talked about the messenger: what kind of men were Paul and his team? Another essential piece is the message. How ought we to live? 1 Thessalonians 4 answers that question, but before we look at that, let’s remind ourselves of a verse my son Mark memorized when he was two years old:

He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6.8, NASB)

How ought we to live? Micah 6.8, of course, is one answer: “Do justice, love kindness, walk humbly with your God.” Here’s another:

Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God 

• to love one another, for that indeed is what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, and 
• to aspire to live quietly, and 
• to mind your own affairs, and 
• to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one. (1 Thessalonians 4:9-12, ESV, bulleted for clarity)

That’s clear! And in this Advent season, it’s good to remember that Jesus spent his first 30 years living quietly, minding his own affairs (as far as we know), and working with his hands. He didn’t grow up in the Temple but in an out-of-the-way town in Galilee.

Our people must also learn to engage in good deeds to meet pressing needs, so that they will not be unfruitful. (Titus 3.14, NASB)

We wrote on Saturday about the remarkable results from Paul’s preaching the gospel to the Thessalonians. Today let’s see one of the reasons for those results: the quality of the messenger. In chapter 1, Paul says:

…You know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake. (1 Thessalonians 1.5, ESV)

What kind of men were Paul and his team?

Chapter 2 describes them in detail:

• Boldness even after persecution and conflict
• No attempt to deceive
• Not men-pleasers or glory seekers (pastors and others of us who are public speakers could learn a lesson here)
• Gentle
• Self-sacrificing
• Holy, righteous, blameless
• The goal was people walking with God in a godly way

The messenger counts! A messenger whose goal is clear:

For now we live, if you are standing fast in the Lord. (1 Thessalonians 3.8, ESV)

Paul wasn’t a hit-and-run evangelist. Once I was in a relatively small meeting of men, and the guest speaker invited men who wanted to begin to follow Jesus to “just make eye contact with me.” Later, this speaker reported in a ministry newsletter that “Eight men committed their lives to Christ” in that meeting. Really? I was there, and neither I (one of the leaders) nor this speaker even knew who these men were. He didn’t invite them to come up and talk with us. Nothing. Paul put no stock into “raised hands” or “eye contact” but into changed lives.

This Advent season we celebrate the coming of One who also cared about changed lives. Who made no attempt to deceive. Who was gentle, self-sacrificing, holy, righteous, and blameless.

And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God. (Luke 1.35, ESV)

“Say to Daughter Zion, ‘See, your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey…’ ” (Matthew 21.5, NIV)

My friend Preston Poore wrote an intriguing blog a few weeks ago about the competition between Coca-Cola and Pepsi at the University of Alabama back in the late 90s, early 2000s. Preston worked for Coke. It’s long, complex, and very informative if you want to learn about high-level marketing issues. Preston lists his main lessons learned as:

• Position (sometimes you need someone in power, in this case, the President of the University of Alabama)
• Persistence (Preston persisted until he succeeded)
• Providence (Preston sees God’s hand in his work)

I’m not writing about these things. Please read the blog in its entirety for details.

Advent season is a time to think about God becoming present in our world, even in the mundane. I say mundane because as I was reading Preston’s blog, I’m thinking, “I can’t imagine anything less important or relevant than how many people in Alabama drink Coke instead of Pepsi.” I was thinking about what Steve Jobs said to John Sculley when Steve was trying to get John to leave his high position in an established company like Pepsi and join Apple: a start-up that may or may not succeed. Steve said:

Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?

Back to Preston, a marketer of “sugar water.” The fact that Preston saw God in some of the details means that God cares even about the trivial.

It is the Lord Christ you are serving. (Colossians 3.24)

At this time of year, we’re thinking about Advent: Jesus came into the world. He worked as a carpenter, building things that turned to dust long ago. He turned water into wine at a wedding. My early mentors in The Navigators used to say, “It’s all gonna burn…so invest in men…Don’t give your life to bananas [or Coca-Cola(!)]” But that outlook, as powerful and motivating as it was, was incomplete. God is in all of it. The incarnation reminds us of that.

When the time came, [Jesus] set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death. (Philippians 2.7, 8, MSG)

It’s the Second Sunday of Advent: Peace

Peace has been the promise from the beginning:

And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” (Luke 2.8 – 14, ESV, emphasis mine)

We don’t see much peace today, but Jesus’ promise of peace, peace in the midst of trial, remains:

I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” (John 16.33, ESV)

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (Romans 5.1 – 5, ESV, emphasis mine, all four advent candle themes!)

1 Thessalonians 1 is not generally associated with Advent, but why not? It captures some of what we should be expecting when Jesus comes, when “the gospel” – the good news about him – comes:

There is so much in 1 Thessalonians 1, quoted here with little comment, bulleted for emphasis and clarity:

…remembering before our God and Father 

• your work of faith and 
• labor of love and 
• steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. (verse 3)

…because our gospel came to you 

• not only in word, 
• but also in power and 
• in the Holy Spirit and 
• with full conviction. 
• You know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake. (verse 5)

How does the gospel come? Or how should it come? See the list above! And when it does, people believe. And when they believe, we know that they are chosen (verse 4).

The result?

• you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for 

• you received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit, so that 

• you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. For not only has 

• the word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia, but 

• your faith in God has gone forth everywhere, so that we need not say anything. For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you, and how 
  • you turned to God from idols
  • to serve the living and true God, and
  • to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come. (verses 6 – 10)

Transformation! Conversion! Passing the good news on! That’s what happens when Jesus comes and when the news about him comes.