Christmas: Hope for the Second Coming Created By His First One!

Christ-followers speak of the birth of Jesus as "the First Advent" meaning "the First Coming."  Obviously, if we need to distinguish a "first" anything, it is because there is always a "second" of that same thing.  Recently, I've been encouraged to see that the "First Coming of Christ," teaches me some important things about my hope and longing for the "Second Coming of Christ."

First, I discover that there could be no second coming with this first one.  Before Christ could return to rule as king, He had to come as savior - born as a human, to suffer and die.  Just as we see in Revelation that the "lamb who was slain" is also the Lion of Judah, so this work of rescuer must happen before He can ever be ruler.

That is because of the depth of my own brokenness and separation from God.  I don't just need a new authority in my life, a new king.  That would be inadequate for the problem at hand.  I need to be transferred out of an old Kingdom and into a new one, and then I can serve the new King.  Only after I have been taken out of the dark, can I see life in the light.

So I celebrate this first coming, and what was accomplished at the cross, even as it produces in me a hope and desire to see the second coming.  Isaiah saw that day of His victorious coming as a time of restoration for all of the Father's creation; a time when violence, injustice and oppression would be eradicated from the entire planet:

⁹ They will neither harm nor destroy

on all my holy mountain,

for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord

as the waters cover the sea.- Isaiah 11:9 

(Read the full text in Isaiah 11:6-9)

That day can't come until the redemption that the Christmas birth set in motion was completed.  But now that the Child in the manger has uttered "It is finished," we wait with assurance, hope and expectancy.

Scotty Smith, in his prayer post for December 7 - the 70th anniversary of a day of great harm on the planet - puts this hope so well:

I’m stirred to think about the Day of no more harm, of any variety. “They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain.” Oh, for the day when all “tooth and claw” violence gives way to wolves frolicking with lambs; leopards and goats napping together; calves, lions, and young horses strolling through the new heaven and new earth as friends; cows and bears eating together, rather than munching on one another; snakes as pets rather than pests.


But as much as I love the vision of shalom in the animal kingdom, ten-thousand-times-over, I long for the day when we two-legged image-bearers of God, will never again hurt one another. No more marginalizing or minimizing one another; no more demeaning or dismissing one another; no more vilifying or idolizing one another; no more hating or hurting one another; no more using or abusing one another in any way.


No more gossip, just gospel. No more slandering anybody, just serving everybody. No more labeling, just loving. No more resentment, just enjoyment. No more meanness, just kindness. No more retaliation, just reconciliation. … FOREVER - Click Here for the entire post

"The day when we two-legged image-bearers of God, will never again hurt one another."  That's the hope that is birthed in Bethlehem, and in my heart.

Merry Christmas indeed!