Leading Your Family in Celebration & Longing this Advent Season
Christmas has a way of creating family time. Even the busiest of families with the fullest schedules seem to make extra effort to find some extra family time during the month of December.
Whether it’s decorating the Christmas tree, making cookies, driving around to look at Christmas lights, or exchanging gifts, families will often spend this time together.
For Christian families, this family time creates wonderful opportunities for some Gospel conversations. Deuteronomy 6:7 calls families to be intentional when they are sitting around in their house, traveling around together, and with the early hours of the morning and late hours of the evening. In the same way, this December can be filled with intentional gospel conversations as you sit in the house making cookies, as you travel neighborhoods looking at Christmas lights, during that early morning before you open presents, and just before bedtime after your Christmas movie night.
Gospel conversations will teach the family that this is the season of Advent—a time of celebration and longing. The word Advent means “coming,” and is a season of both celebrating the coming of Jesus Christ and longing for the second coming of Jesus Christ.
Hebrews 9 brings both into focus as the author highlights the beautiful truth that Jesus has appeared and will appear: “He has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself…so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for Him” (Hebrews 9:26, 28).
LEAD YOUR FAMILY TO CELEBRATE THE ADVENT OF CHRIST
Christmas brings a sense of nostalgia for many families as this time ushers in memories of good times, old friends, past celebrations, and our childhood. An old Christmas movie, a certain dessert, or song can immediately bring back joyful memories from long ago. This is a time of looking back.
As you lead your family in Family Worship this month, teach your household how to Look Back this Advent season.
Look back at the promise of a Savior (Luke 1:26-38).
Look back at the birth of Jesus Christ (Luke 2:1:7; John 1:1-18).
Look back at those who worshipped at the first Advent, the first coming, of Jesus Christ (Luke 2:8-20).
Look back at the Gospel purpose for which Jesus came (Luke 19:10; 1 Timothy 1:15).
As you look back this Advent season, don’t just look back to Christmases past, look back at the birth of Jesus and lead your family to Celebrate the Good News of Great Joy that is for All People (Luke 2:10).
LEAD YOUR FAMILY TO LONG FOR THE ADVENT OF CHRIST
We follow a long line of men and women who longed for the coming of the Lord. So many Old Testament families spoke of the One who was to come. The Word tells us that “the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating” (1 Peter 1:11). Even in the New Testament, men like Simeon and women like Anna were waiting for the coming Christ and His redemption (Luke 2:25-38).
These were all looking forward, longing for the Advent of Christ. And while Christ has already come and we now look back with celebration, we are still waiting for Him to come again. So we too look forward, longing for the second coming, the second Advent of Jesus Christ.
For many families, Christmas is not always “Merry.” This season is often filled with grief, mourning, even depression. There are some who will say, “I just need to make it through Christmas.” For even at Christmas, we live in a broken world, filled with sin and suffering. But as Christians, we don’t look forward hopelessly, just trying to survive the holiday. Instead, we look forward with great hope and expectation, longing for the return of Jesus Christ.
So as you lead your family in Family Worship this month, teach your household how to Look Forward this Advent Season.
Look forward to our forever home and glorious transformation (Philippians 3:20-21).
Look forward to dwelling with Jesus forever (John 14:1-3).
Look forward to hope fulfilled (Titus 2:13).
Look forward to the day when “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4).
As you plan family time this month, cultivate Family Worship through gospel conversations about the Advent of Jesus. Look back in celebration, look forward in longing, and lead your family to enjoy the One who came and is coming again.
Dr. Jonathan Williams, Ph.D. (Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary) is the founder and executive director of Gospel Family Ministries. This ministry focuses on strengthening family ministry in the local church and cultivating family worship in the Christian home. Jonathan is the author of “A Practical Theology of Family Worship” and “Gospel Family.” He also teaches as an adjunct professor at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, TX. Previously, Jonathan served for 10 years as the senior pastor of Wilcrest Baptist Church, a multi-ethnic church of more than 50 nations. He lives and writes in Texas with his wife and three children.