Advent Sunday 4

The fourth Sunday of Advent has some great readings from the Scriptures. Each Sunday of Advent deals with Old and New Testament references to the First and Second Advent. I have really enjoyed writing about the first three Sundays of Advent and you can read those articles by clicking on the following links:

Advent Sunday 3

I have really enjoyed this journey through the Sundays of Advent. I wrote the first article on the First Sunday of Advent and you can read it here. The previous Advent article was on the Second Sunday of Advent and you can read it here. I have learned a lot about the traditions of advent. I have thoroughly enjoyed walking through the Scriptures that point to the First and Second Advent of Jesus Christ.

Advent Sunday 2

Last Sunday was the first Sunday of advent. I wrote an article about the first Sunday of advent and you can read it here. Since I wrote about the first Sunday of advent last week, I decided to write about the second Sunday of advent here. As we consider the second Sunday of advent, we will focus mainly on four Biblical texts.

Advent Sunday 1

Tomorrow is the first Sunday of Advent so I decided to look up what  Scriptures are used on the first Sunday of advent according to the Catholic Church. I did not grow up celebrating Advent so I decided to take a look at the Advent calendar and see what the Scripture references were for the Sundays leading up to Advent. The first Sunday of Advent contains four Scripture passages:

The Prince of Peace reigns

This week during our Connect Groups, we are going to take a look at the first advent of the Messiah. This is our Christmas lesson since Christmas is just around the corner. Christmas is an annual holiday, a tradition that has been passed down from one generation to the next. The tradition is the celebration of the birth of the Promised Messiah. Celebrating the birth of the Messiah has its roots in Genesis chapters 3 and 4. God promised that a male child would be born and He would crush sin and rescue people from their sins. The first celebration of the birth of the Messiah took place in Genesis 4. Eve believed that her firstborn son, Cain, was the promised male child. She was correct in expecting his birth but she was wrong in the timing. This is the first time we see people seeking to celebrate the birth of the Promised Messiah. That happened roughly 4,000 years before the birth of Jesus Christ. For us today, it was about 6,000 years ago. During a 4,000 year period, people placed their faith in the Promised Messiah. The people were looking forward to the coming of the Messiah, the birth of the Messiah. Now, we look back on the fact that the Messiah has come. It has been about 2,000 years since this event. Christians have been celebrating the birth of Christ for almost 2,000 years. The idea of celebrating the birth of the Promised Messiah has been around, as I mentioned earlier, for almost 6,000 years in human history.