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Love

Teaching Texts: Isaiah‬ ‭9‬:‭2

The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.

John‬ ‭1‬:‭4‬-‭5

In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Themes

Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:

Hope

Formation

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

ADVENT: Arrival
- Often regarding the arrival of a moment or a person.
- In the church calendar it refers to the arrival of Jesus.
- Advent season is the season of waiting for the arrival of our Savior.
Hope
- Baker's Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology - Hope: To trust in, wait for, look for, or desire something or someone; or to expect something beneficial in the future.
It is often said that the most repeated command in scripture is to not fear - a close second would be “remember”
So much of Jewish scripture, especially the Psalms, is them reminding each other of the things that God has done and of the character of God. Psalm 136 retells the story of the Exodus and has the repeated refrain “His mercy endures forever”
The feasts of the Jewish calendar were set for the purpose of remembering.
The story that we are invited to sit in and give remembrance to every Advent starts in a world where God is or at least appears to be silent.
Starting our year in darkness, helps us to remember that the darkness comes before the light. We get to remember not just the bright shiny moments of triumph but also the darkness that preceded those moments.
And it’s a helpful rhythm, because ultimately we are a people defined by waiting. More than victories, more than triumphs, we are a people that waits in those in between spaces.
For the people of God, there’s a lot of waiting.
- And then there’s us, the church, the bride of Christ. We are waiting for our Bridegroom, for Jesus to return just as He said He would and for His Kingdom to come in its fullness.
The relationship/intimacy between the bride and bridegroom:
- “At its core lives hope: the anticipation of coming good based on the character or nature of another”
- “At the core of a bride’s greatest and most defining act is waiting. This waiting has the power either to define her or to diminish her.”
As followers of Christ, we feel this intensely: the reality of a kingdom that has come, but is also coming. Of a King and Savior who has come and is also coming. And we’re not just waiting for the world to become good and beautiful and kind, but waiting for ourselves to become good and beautiful and kind.
Excerpt from TIRED by Langston Hughes
- I am so tired of waiting,
  Aren’t you,
  For the world to become good
  And beautiful and kind?
Fortunately for us, this hope is not dependent on our faithfulness, but is completely reliant on God’s.
We can expect GOOD because of God’s ability to fulfill His promises
In which areas of your life is hope running low right now?
But the waiting can become difficult.
Waiting can either:
- Builds appetite v. dulls senses
- Deepens love v. inflates fragility
- Reveals our deepest hope or illuminates our fears
“How we wait and what we do with it, where we set our gaze and our hope in it will determine the type of intimacy and goodness we know as we wait.”
It matters how you wait.
- How do you respond in seasons where you are required to wait?
- What do you do in those seasons?
- How do you feel in those seasons?
- How is your faith affected by waiting?
“And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” – Romans‬ ‭5‬:‭5‬ ‭NIV
And our advent hope is that on the other side of death is life. You will feel like you are passing through the valley of the shadow of death, but our good shepherd who walks with us through the valley promises to transform it into a door of hope. He chooses to live inside of us by the Holy Spirit so that we can be formed more and more into his image and likeness until there is an unmistakable family resemblance.
Because of Jesus and by the Spirit, we also have become light:
- “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light.” – ‭‭Ephesians‬ ‭5‬:‭8‬ ‭NIV‬‬
How do we wait with hope?
- Hope is a discipline