Every year at Advent, pastors and church leaders feel both the beauty and the weight of the Christmas season. Church services are full, the calendar is crowded, and the message of “God with us” feels more urgent than ever. Yet we know that something else is true: For many—both here in the United States and all over the world—Christmas is a reminder that the world is broken and in need of tremendous healing.
The poor, the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner (Zechariah 7:10)—those the Bible consistently call us to remember—often feel the pressures of life most intensely. Decorations and holiday cheer do very little for the millions marked by fear, displacement, loneliness, and economic struggle.
The longings of Advent echo loudly a line from Andrew Peterson’s song “Is He Worthy”: “Do you wish that you could see it all made new?”
We do. The Church does.
Seeing the First Advent From the Final Advent
Each year as churches reflect on Jesus’ birth narrative, it should be done in anticipation of the promises he will make good on upon his return. Revelation 22:1-4 gives us the vision of what Jesus’ second coming will bring the world, which will include the Tree of Life with leaves that are for “the healing of the nations.” Grounding Advent in both Jesus’ first and second coming takes us from Christmas as sentimental nostalgia to Christmas as realistic expectation of a world made new.
Our observance of Advent is the declaration that God stepped into the brokenness of the world to begin a global healing project through the Church. And if that’s true, then Advent is not only a time to remember Christ’s birth; it’s a time to participate in his work of mission—locally and globally. And pastors and church leaders have the sacred privilege of leading their churches into a world-wide endeavor that often starts with loving our neighbor.
Below are four invitations for this season, fueled by the hope, that leaders can use to remind churches that Jesus’ incarnation began a work that will be completed at his return:
1. Remind Your People That Jesus’ Coming Is God’s Answer to a Broken World
In verses 3-5, John sees a world finally healed: no curse, no night, no darkness—only the Lamb who is himself light and life. But he received that vision while still living in a world of exile, persecution, and pain.
Amid the holiday cheer, many people still feel the groaning of a world that is not yet healed—job loss, family brokenness, mental health struggles, war in the headlines, economic pressure, and the loneliness that quietly stalks so many.
One of your greatest gifts this season is to proclaim the same hope the angel gave John, “No longer will there be anything accursed” (v. 3). The Incarnation is God’s assurance that He sees every wound and has already started the work of undoing everything that is evil and a consequence of the curse in Genesis 3.
Christmas is a declaration that the healing of the nations has already begun because Christ was sent to the world. When you preach this, your people don’t just hear eschatology for the future—they hear hope for the present.
2. Lead Your Church to See the Vulnerable the Way God Sees Them
Throughout Scripture, God consistently identifies with the poor, the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner. Not as an act of charity but as an expression of his character. God doesn’t see by towering over them but by becoming one of them.
Christmas is the story of God Himself being born into poverty, in a borrowed stable, to a family who will soon have to seek asylum from King Herod. If there is any season when the vulnerable should be centered in the life of the church, it is this one.
