Christmas Isn't Just a New Testament Celebration

I love the Advent season. I love its sense of anticipation, and I love the way it takes me back to Christmases as a child—the singing, the church, the gifts. I love the preparations, too. 

Some of us are the kind of people who start getting ready for Christmas in September. I am not one of those. I am more of a December-preparer. As a pastor, I find myself each December still writing my Advent sermons, and envying those who planned theirs out months earlier. My approach to gift-buying is similar. Thankfully, my wife is very much more of an organized person, otherwise things would be chaos.

It is easy to look at the first Christmas as though God were a December-preparer—as though the story starts on the first page of the New Testament, with an angel suddenly showing up to a girl in Galilee. But the Bible is a two-act drama, and to start at the Gospels is to join at the interval. 

When God’s Christmas Preparations Began

No, God’s preparations for the moment when this earth would receive its King started where John’s Gospel does: not with angels and shepherds and wise men, but “In the beginning”—in fact from before the beginning. 

From eternity past God planned to send His Son so that we might have life with Him for eternity future.

And so in the pages of my advent devotional, Let Earth Receive Her King we start at the beginning, and follow God’s preparations for the awe-inspiring event of that first Christmas night. We trace His plans and purposes through the Old Testament, before we enjoy reflecting once more on the events surrounding the coming of the Word made flesh.

When God’s Christmas Will be Complete

But we do not stop there. “Advent” comes from the Latin word “Adventus,” which means “Coming.” And we are meant to have two “comings” in view—Christ’s arrival in the past and His return in the future.

The King of creation has walked on this earth, in history. And this earth will receive its King once again, this time arriving not as an unheralded baby but coming gloriously, unmistakably, on the clouds of heaven.

Children, of course, spend Advent looking forward to Christmas Day. We are invited to look beyond that, and to a far greater day—the day Jesus returns. So our time together in Let Earth Receive Her King starts with Genesis 1, and by Christmas Eve we reach the other end of the Scriptures and the final chapter of Revelation.

An Invitation to Celebrate

This Advent, I invite you to join me in looking back to the Lord’s first coming—to how the wondrous gift was given, and how that gift is joy to the world, and joy for our hearts, today. And I invite you to join me in looking forward to His second coming—to what God is still preparing to deliver in the future, and what that, too, means for us today.

My prayer is that these Advent devotions will cause you to wonder at all that God has done, and worship the one who lay in the manger that first Christmas night; and that they will foster within you a great sense of anticipation for Christ’s return and prompt you to wait with joy for the day when earth once again receives its King. My prayer is that this Advent season, you and I would grow in our love for Him.

This is an adapted excerpt from the introduction of Let Earth Receive Her King, an advent devotional by Alistair Begg. If you are a church leader, you may be interested in the free sermon series outline available here, as this will help you preach through advent about how God prepares for Christmas throughout all of Scripture.