As the impending season of Christmas starts to make inroads into our wallets, and the annual battles about taking Jesus out of it, or it being too CHristian a festival, begin, we feel it's important to focus. At IVP we've always been passionate about knowing Jesus and making him known, and all of our books and resources have that as their driving motivation. It's why all our editorial staff joyfully sign the Doctrinal Basis that we share with UCCF: The Christian Unions.

Christopher Wright writes:

"It has long seemed to me that Advent is something of a Cinderella in the church’s year – rather overlooked and sometimes downright ill-treated. We all love the Christmas season, Easter is a joyful celebration, and there are those who take Lent quite seriously as a time of self-denial in some way. But Advent? Like people who were careless enough to be born near the end of December and find that nobody can remember their birthday, let alone celebrate it, the weeks of Advent are simply buried under the avalanche of approaching Christmas.

Liturgically minded churches will say the Advent Collect on Advent Sunday, but may forget to include it the following weeks (though it is a beautiful, biblical and challenging prayer, well worth repeating). We might get to sing ‘O Come, O Come, Emmanuel’, but so drearily that it seems weirdly out of tune with the bells and angels of carol services and nativity plays. And being told that Advent is all about the second coming can also be heard as a bit of a dampener on the festive season, when it’s often hard enough to tell the world that Christmas is about Christ’s first coming.

There is an acclamation in the Anglican service of Holy Communion, which joyfully affirms, ‘Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.’ Perhaps the motto for this season could be: ‘God has come. God keeps coming. God will come again.’ My hope is that this short book will be a source of daily rejoicing as you trace the comings of God in all the Scriptures."

If Chris has got you in the mood for Advent, why not sign up below to recieve a free daily advent devotional throughout December?

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