Advent

They wait for Him in the leper colonies. Waiting for Him to touch their snowy white skin and make it whole again. They have been outcasts for so long, knowing only the word “Unclean!” to describe them. With healing, they can be loved again. Oh to be loved.

They wait for Him as AID’s takes away the life of their youth. They ask Him for a mom and dad, just to be a part of a family before death carries them into the unknown… Just like it’s already carried away their mother’s and father’s. Their cries fill the small, overcrowded rooms of the orphanages. Slowly they see their playmates, their siblings, those well, taken first. No one is coming for them. They beg Him to let them be included. Oh for a family.

They wait for Him in prison cells across the world. Memories overcome their weary minds as they fight to cling to truth. The scars covering their backs will never heal here on earth. They will never forget the moment they were ripped away from the churches they had vowed to give their very lives for. They will never forget seeing the tears on their babies faces when the soldiers came. They ask Him for release. They beg Him to open the prison doors wide. Oh for freedom.

They wait for Him in the small towns. Waiting for Him to come put together the brokenness that has become a normal they can’t ever seem to shake. They wait for Him to put together the marriages; destroyed by lust, addictions, pleasures that never seem to be satisfied. In their little hearts they wish for the pills to be thrown away, the bottles destroyed.  Beside small beds they ask for their daddy to love Jesus and to come home again. He hasn’t come home for Christmas in a long time. Oh for a Daddy.

They wait for Him in the Red Light districts and dirty brothels. Numb to any beauty of life, it seems impossible imagining anything outside of this place. But in the darkness, as their last customer for the night has finally left, they find their hearts crying out for something. Anything more than this living hell.

They plead for a Rescuer. Oh for a Redeemer.

They wait for Him on the bench inside the large, beautiful stain-glassed sanctuary. Put together on the outside, yet their insides have been dying for so long now. Change seems impossible, pretending now a part of who they have become. Secret sins shredding them apart, overwhelmed by lies, they have become complacent and apathetic. They ask Him to for life. To feel something again. If only just for one time. They begin to cry out for a Healer. Someone to make the dry bones come to life. Oh for life.

Hopeless in themselves. The leper without access to any medicine even able to touch such a disease, the child unable to write their own adoption papers, the prostitute without money or power to buy her own freedom, daddy doesn’t even want to come home yet….

But then the darkness begins to shatter, as the King steps back into the world.

We would have given up long ago, but in His kingdom, their stories haven’t ended yet.

They are just beginning.

He makes ALL things new. Feel the weight and beauty and hope of those words.

ALL THINGS.

Someone told the leper about the One who washes all people clean by His blood. Who makes the unclean, “Clean!” The man now laughs as he listens to the stories of Peter, Paul, Moses...the leper who came back and thanked Jesus for healing him too. Surrounded by a community, fully accepted before the King of Kings.

Every night before bed, a sister at the orphanage told the children about a Daddy who had written adoption papers for each of them. A Daddy who wanted them all, sick or well. A Daddy who had come to bring them into His family forever, a Daddy who would love and protect them and never leave them. The little boy believed in this Daddy, and when he grew up, he came back to the orphanage with his wife and they signed adoption papers to bring 3 babies home. He sits at the table next to his wife and their 3 children, all healed from AID’s here. I see them smiling and talking to Jesus.

Someone went to that small house and started doing life with that family.  More people were raised up to pray over those children and to join them in asking for their daddy to love Jesus and come home. They sit at the table, eating their fill from the best china dishes they’ve ever seen. For the first time in years, they’re getting to eat together as a family. Finally a meal void of conflict, anger, alcohol, drugs, or fear of anyone leaving. I see Jesus wipe their last tear away. They're ALL here.

Someone came to the brothel and rescued the women. Someone opened up their home and took the hardened girl inside. They gave her a safe place to sleep and told her about the Greatest Healer ever to come. She didn’t understand it for a long time, she broke many hearts trying to figure this whole thing out. But now she’s here. She’s been touched by the very hand of Jesus… a hand that will never defile her, never degrade her or use her, a hand that will never sell her for money. She listens intently as Rahab tells her story. You see them taking a long walk together with Jesus.

Everyone is made well here. Everyone is made new and clean. The stories never stop coming forth.

Their endings beautiful and they find themselves in perfect worship at the foot of the throne of the King of Kings.

They understand perfectly that it was the King alone who saved them. No one else had the power on earth to set them free. And for some reason or another, He chose to send many “someone’s” along the way to reveal Himself to them.

Together, hand in hand, they rejoice.

Today, I rejoice in the First Advent. That the Savior, God Himself, has come.

And I rejoice in the hope for the Second Advent. For the return of the King.

When He will make ALL things new.