Dear Family at Christ Community,

     This Sunday will be the last in our Advent Series from Genesis as we delve into God’s restoration and transformation of Abram and Sarai to Abraham and Sarah in Genesis 17. In Genesis 16, it appeared that the axe had been laid to the root of the covenant tree through the sin of Abram and Sarai. However, God reveals yet again His persistent and unchanging faithfulness to His covenant promises in His forgiving Abram and forging him into a servant worthy of the calling. God’s persistent and unchanging faithfulness continues throughout history and is wonderfully represented in the Lord’s Table. The broken bread and abundant cup represent God’s mercy, grace, slowness to anger, abounding steadfast love, faithfulness to His people, forgiveness of sins, and justice in judgment through Christ’s sacrifice on the cross and resurrection from the dead. God’s unfailing, unrelenting love continues and grows with the passing of each year until the return of Christ when the divisive power of sin and death will finally be broken, and all things will be made whole. John describes this beautifully in Revelation 7:9-12:

After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”

Despite all of the creative ways that we come up with to fail in keeping covenant with God, He proves more creative still in His redemption and restoration of us. As Fleming Rutledge puts it in her collection of writings on Advent, “Where faith in mankind comes to an end, the message of Christmas begins.” Remember that the message of Christmas spans the whole length of the year in declaring that Christ has come and He is coming again!

     Let us glory in God’s faithfulness to overcome our weaknesses and failings for yet another year. Give thanks for His provision of a continual reminder of our forgiveness in Christ as signified in the Lord’s Table. Invite others to join us through the transforming power of the Gospel of Christ at this table and the greater meal to come at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. Extend forgiveness as freely as it was extended to you. Come boldly before the Lord blameless in Christ to receive what you need to face another year!

In Christ,
Cameron