approaching God who approaches us

The Advent of the Christ was just a purple candle on a Sunday morning for the first 30 years of my life, and I’m still learning to pause and hold the tension of joy-with-penitence of this “little Lent” before rushing straight into tinsel and carols and holly-jolly cheer the day after Thanksgiving. What is joy with penitence? What does it mean to fast in preparation for a feast, or to sorrowfully reflect while at the same time growing in anticipation for the arrival of the King?

The calendar moves us toward Jesus, toward Christmas. Jesus moves toward us in the miracle of the Incarnation. Heaven and earth are set on a collision-course that will blow up the trajectory of history and should likewise alter the course of our lives. The King is coming, and we are ill-prepared, sin-filled, unworthy to welcome him—sorrow. The King is coming, and He is our loving Father and our salvation—joy.

Advent is like the cool of the day in Eden, that time of the evening breeze when God walked in the garden (Genesis 3:8). His approach would have been pure joy, but for the failures of His imagers. Adam and Eve hide like guilty children waiting to be caught by their parent, unsure what the reaction will be, but expecting it to be bad. Instead of joy, sorrow. Within three pages the whole-goodness of God’s presence for humans has been corrupted by sin, and the whole-joy of His approach has been corrupted by fear.

“Where are you?” (Genesis 3:9b)

“I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.” (Genesis 3:10)

I was afraid because I was naked. I was ashamed of myself. I was not worthy to receive you.

We’ve all been there. We reflect for two minutes on the scandal of the Incarnation and we are there: naked, ashamed, unworthy, afraid. How can we approach this God? The instinct is to hide, to lie, to cover ourselves up.

But this glimpse of Advent in Genesis is a glimpse of the joy in our own little Lent, for the King does not laugh at His wayward children; He does not lose His temper; He does not destroy them or abuse them or beat them down. He holds His boundary—and at the same time He covers their shame.

The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.

Genesis 3:21-23

We pause in Advent deeply aware of our spiritual nakedness and deeply grateful for God’s generous provision. We can approach Him, unhiding, because He approached us not as a mighty warrior-king but naked and humble Himself, a suffering Servant offering us robes of righteousness. We have a place now in His temple court because He became the fruit of the tree of life by hanging, cursed, on a tree of death.

Of Him we take and eat, and live forever.