Bethany Bullet - December 1, 2009

“Soon you will be set free.” Luke 21:28 CEV

I don’t know if those words caused you alarm on Sunday or not, but they certainly left me scratching my head. I remember only a month ago, Reformation Sunday to be exact, Jesus declared us free people. In John’s Gospel, the eighth chapter, Jesus promised that, “The truth has set us free.” And that if the Son sets us free - we will be indeed…so I was wondering which is it?

• Did Jesus take back on the 1st Sunday in Advent something He already gave on Reformation Sunday, freedom?
• Was He unable to deliver?
• Did He need to move the tense, from present to future, in order to actually fulfill what He said He’d grant?
• Are we free or will we be free?
• Which is it?

I believe the answer to the questions:

• Are we free or will we be free?
• Did Jesus give us freedom or will He give us freedom?

The answer – is YES!

That probably creates yet another question:

• How can we be free now and yet be set free in the future?

The answer – is Advent!

At His first Advent, His birth, His holy perfect life, and by His innocent suffering and death – Jesus has freed us from sins consequence. We are no longer guilty before God. We are no longer strangers, aliens, and outcasts but through the gifts and works of His first Advent we are the redeemed children of God. We are free. Free from sin’s curse. Free from Satan’s accusations. Free from death’s bondage. And yet we still know what it is to be sinned against, and to sin. We are familiar with being hurt and causing harm. We have wept tears and made others cry. While free from sin it is still a part of our experience. For now! Soon we will be set free! In Jesus’ second Advent – His return, whether that comes to us personally in our resurrection while the world waits or comes globally with His return on the clouds in power and glory while we are alive to see it. The truth is that when we experience Christ’s presence on that day our waiting ends. And those who have escaped sins consequence will at that moment escape sins experience and we will be free.

Advent therefore puts us on a spiritual swivel so to speak. In one direction – we, in awe and wonder, look back to Christ’s first coming in which He has set us free from sins consequence. In the other direction – we, with yearning and longing, look forward to Christ’s second coming (or His coming to claim us at death) in which He will set us free from sins experience.

-Pastor Kevin Kritzer