The God I find in the pages of the Bible cannot be redefined or forced into a box. The God I read about in the 66 books and 1,189 chapters of the Bible cannot be pinned down by human logic. Living Advent is about missional Christianity, a witnessing life of surrender to God. This is in contrast to a transactional Christianity with the expectation that God must conform to our popular culture and ‘notions of how He should behave, who He should bless and how, and what He should do to reward us for honouring our end of the deal.’ Living Advent is a call to relationship in expectation of the Coming One. God want to walk walk with us through our pain, and not just to make it disappear. The reflection is that, ‘a life with pain but with God is much better than a life without pain and without God.’

Beyond the use of a major concept and phrase in the Bible, ‘You reap what you sow,’ the planting is a major act of faith and witnessing rather than using this scripture to prove the popular culture and prosperity false doctrine of doing good and God will bless you abundantly (Gal 6:7). Evangelism is like ‘you will reap what you sow,’ a missional warning hence, Living Advent calls us to go out and and sow the seed of the Word of God bearing in mind that our sins will find us out (Numb 32:23). Living Advent warns us against the human ignorance and pride of sowing mixed seed especially when the word of God is proclaimed, then the devil comes along and sow tares (Lev 19:19)

The testimony of John the Baptist provides the model of missional Christianity, a life of forerunner in preparation for the One that is to come. John the Baptist is remembered by the Church as the patron saint of spiritual joy. The Gospel reading from Matthew 11 places us in a context quite different from Isaiah’s blooming wilderness and Mary’s magnificent vision of God’s kingdom (Is 35:1-10). John’s backstory and conception occasioned by an angelic visit runs contrary to ‘his crisis of belief.’ At the first glimpse of a pregnant Mary, John the Baptist leapt in his mother’s Elizabeth womb. John the Baptist is known as ‘a boy who grew up with prophetic expectations ringing in his ears.  From an early age, he felt the exhilaration and the burden of his calling as “the forerunner.”  He knew he was supposed to preach repentance to everyone who crossed his path. 

So he took to the wilderness, dressed himself in camel skins, and lived on grasshoppers and wild honey.  In due time, he “prepared the way of the Lord,” baptized the Messiah with his own hands, and proclaimed the arrival of God’s kingdom to anyone who would listen.  All this — before he was even thirty years old.’

At a point in his ministry, John the Baptist, the patron saint of spiritual joy was devoid of joy in his wilderness. The expected Messiah could not make anything new until John was murdered. The John in each of us continue to ask in our despair and yearning “Are you the one who is coming?” Living Advent summons us to live authentically in the face of the world’s unbearable sorrow, decay, immorality and decline. Just as John’s story is to indict every form of transactional Christianity that promises us safety, prosperity, and blessing in exchange of our good behaviour’ and seed sowing, Living Advent summons us to faith that is not meant to dull our discomfort or blunt our sorrows.