We Long For: A Restored World

Advent.

The word is derived from a Latin verb that means “to come to.” In the Latin Vulgate, it occurs 33 times from Genesis to Revelation (including the Deuterocanonical books). One of the key occurrences is in the Lord’s Prayer (the Our Father—for my Catholic readers):

Our Father in heaven,
Your name be honored as holy.
Your kingdom come (adveniat).
Your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.

Matthew 6:9–10, HCSB

But what does God’s Kingdom look like? What are we to be expecting during Advent? Are we supposed to be longing to be stolen out of our clothes up to heaven (like the Left Behind books describe)? Are we to be forcing “Christian” policies on a country that was only debatably founded as a Christian nation?

The character of the Kingdom of God is what I want to look at in this series over the next few weeks.

Christians typically reflect on Advent on the Sundays before Christmas. However, since this blog does not intend to compete with your weekly Christian fellowship at your own local church—but rather seeks to supplement it—I’ve decided to post these reflections on Tuesdays, with a final one on Wednesday, December 25.

Week 1: Hope – Genesis 1
Week 2: Peace – Exodus 3
Week 3: Joy – Psalm 130
Week 4: Love – Matthew 1
Christmas Day: Christ – Titus 2

While Jesus’ promise to return in Revelation 22:20 utilizes the same–much more common–root word (venio; 2,299 occurrences in the Vulgate), Revelation 11:18 is another Vulgate text that actually uses the word Advent:

The nations were angry,
but Your wrath has come (advenit).
The time has come (advenit)
for the dead to be judged
and to give the reward
to Your servants the prophets,
to the saints, and to those who fear Your name,
both small and great,
and the time has come (advenit) to destroy
those who destroy the earth.

Admittedly, only the first occurrence is present in the text, which is true also of the original Greek ἦλθεν, but it is interesting to note that an aspect of Advent here (closely tied in with God’s wrath and Judgment which will be fully displayed at the Second Coming) is a rectification of creation.

God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the earth.”

Genesis 1:28, HCSB

Genesis 1–3 is the foundation for the Christian Worldview. It explains the origin of the world, the intention for the creation, and why nothing looks today like the intention described in Genesis 1–2. Careful and conscientious Christians will not go to Genesis 1–2 to justify an exclusively heterosexual definition of marriage and then turn their back on what those same chapters say about care and concern for the creation. To do so is to cherry pick, to be committed more to a political ideology than to Christianity, and to fail in our most basic responsibility as image-bearers of God.

Six times in Genesis 1, God declares that creation was good. And after the creation of humanity—after charging humanity with responsibility for the earth (pre-Fall)—God declares it, “Very Good.” But the last we hear of “Good” in Genesis 1–5 is when Eve is deceived into thinking that the fruit is “good” (Genesis 3:6). But eating this fruit resulted in death. Death is the curse that we—and nature—has been experiencing ever since. And this is not good. (We will come back to how Advent speaks to the human side of this curse next time.)

But today, it is worth pausing to note that nature itself is crying out for a reversal of this curse (Romans 8:19–22). Beware of anyone who cites 2 Peter 3:7 in an effort to say, “The world will burn up; we don’t need to care for it.” This contradicts Genesis 1’s declaration that creation was good, Romans 8’s declaration that the creation is longing for renewal, and Revelation 11’s declaration that God will destroy those who destroy the earth. Will God destroy himself? May it never be!

During Advent, one of our longings should be for the world to be made right. This is a Christian concern:

God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the earth.”

Genesis 1:28, HCSB

When I observe Your heavens,
the work of Your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which You set in place,
what is man that You remember him,
the son of man that You look after him?
You made him little less than God
and crowned him with glory and honor.
You made him lord over the works of Your hands;
You put everything under his feet:
all the sheep and oxen,
as well as the animals in the wild,
the birds of the sky,
and the fish of the sea
that pass through the currents of the seas.

Psalm 8:3–8, HCSB

This is what the Lord says:
Heaven is My throne,
and earth is My footstool.
What house could you possibly build for Me?
And what place could be My home?
My hand made all these things,
and so they all came into being.
This is the Lord’s declaration.
I will look favorably on this kind of person:
one who is humble, submissive in spirit,
and trembles at My word.

Isaiah 66:1–2, HCSB

For the creation eagerly waits with anticipation for God’s sons to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to futility —not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it —in the hope that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage of corruption into the glorious freedom of God’s children.

Romans 8:19–21, HCSB

For everything was created by Him,
in heaven and on earth,
the visible and the invisible,
whether thrones or dominions
or rulers or authorities—
all things have been created through Him and for Him.
He is before all things,
and by Him all things hold together . . .
For God was pleased to have
all His fullness dwell in Him,
and through Him to reconcile
everything to Himself
by making peace
through the blood of His cross —
whether things on earth or things in heaven.

Colossians 1:16–17, 19–20, HCSB

Mankind is responsible for caring for creation, and the Fall resulted in our abdicating this responsibility. Just like the Fall caused us to neglect or exploit fellow humans, so the fall has resulted in our neglecting or exploiting the creation—both flora and fauna.

While hope for a future change can often be used–especially in spiritual matters–to abdicate any present responsibility, this is foolish. And since the first week of Advent focuses on hope, I want to emphasize this theme as it relates to the Christian’s relationship with creation. In any other matter, if you hope for something, you take the steps to make it a reality:

• You and your spouse are hoping for a baby–do you just sit back and wait for the stork to arrive?
• You are hoping for a better job–you send resumes and work on your portfolio.
• You are hoping to get your driver’s license–you take tests and practice driving.

Yes. The created world will be renewed when Christ returns, and we hope for that return to occur in our lifetimes, but in the meantime we should be working toward what we long to see. This demonstrates that our hope is real.

God is a God of means. Just like God could snap his fingers and convert the world to Christianity—but he doesn’t—so also does he use means to uphold his creation. Humanity—as God’s co-rulers on earth (Genesis 1:28) have been given the task of caring for the creation. Do we tremble at this word or do we shrug it off as nothing more than a political agenda we disagree with?

We’ll come back next week for a look at more that the Advent season should cause us to long for, but as you go throughout this week, let me leave you with a few questions to consider:

• What do I think about the environment and Christian responsibility?
• What can I do to care for the environment that God has entrusted to me?
• How have I failed in the past to care for the environment, and how can I repent of that failure?

In this with you.

Thanks for reading.