Advent and the Foretastes!

[HKHaugan]

Advent and the Foretastes!

On weekends when you go to a few of the big discount stores like Costco or BJ's there are people dressed as cooks at the end of some of the aisles preparing bits and pieces of different kinds of foods for you to taste. Their intention is to get you to buy a box or more of their product. If you like the flavor of the foretaste you'll want more. The idea is not only to get your family to enjoy it but also you might even be inspired to invite friends to share it at a party or dinner.

It's all about the foretaste. You visualize the possibilities both visible and invisible, both being involved in the foretaste. You begin a mental process of organizing when, where, how, why, what will be done and who will be there. Food and fellowship just go together. It's even captured in Dicken's Christmas Carol when on the night before Christmas nothing was stirring and children were “nestled all snug in their beds” hoping St.Nicholas would arrive soon “while visions of sugar plums danced in their heads.” The visions of a special person and a special food fill their hopes, the foretastes of that for which we were created. One gets the hint of the Lord and His Supper, the sublime human foretaste He blesses us with in worship. This is true of everything we hope for, a person, the experience of the person and sharing that experience with others.

In this world there are all kinds of aromas and cooks offering tastes to satisfy the moment. But the ultimate aromas, the ultimate taste is not physical, it's personal. It's someone we can be around, someone we can marry, someone or ones we can be friends with, work with and share with. No matter what we do for a living or the accomplishments we gather, the degrees and honors we attain, our best times are summed up in the people we love and who love us. The trust, honesty and openness are what we prize most. The capacities to realize these are built into us from birth. Their fulfillment depends on who we place at the center of these our deepest longings.

When we place Jesus in the center, the realization of their reality slowly builds in us in a really real way. Really. He becomes more than an historic personage among many idealists with unattainable ideals. You know, the ideal person we wish we could be like. The media defines them from day to day. They exemplify a personal idealism that is always beyond our reach and their stories and tombstone remind me of my worldly inferiority.

But Jesus is different. He breaks through the veil of my assumption that I just have to work hard to be good and more perfect as I struggle to make my own relationships my way. His resurrected presence is more than real. It's His Spirit that touches me from within not demanding some kind of 'goody-goody' principles. He is actually right there pushing me to see Him as an ongoing momentary present companion clearing my path. The path is me as a person among persons, thinking, feeling, believing, working, caring, laughing, crying, sad, happy, up and down, in and out and His presence right there all the time lifting me above the world's lonely judgmental chaos into order and stability. His grace, love and truth put it all in an eternal perspective.

What we are talking about here is that everything in this world has about it a foretaste of what eternity is like. Not what it is, but what it is like. What awaits us when we die. It's what we can anticipate a bit of if we project ourselves into a future mode. Advent celebrates our final moment when Jesus returns. He is always getting us to look forward through Him. He is the vision of the future which is what makes us come alive in the present. What we are right now as an image of God in its personal, relational and spiritual experience is yearning to be like Him. Regardless of what we may think or feel, that is the image in us hungering for its future in Him. Faith in Him is letting go of the struggle and letting Him feed the hunger. Expect and He will be there, anticipate and you will experience Him, yearn for and He will answer. The future is every next moment and faith in Him is what we were made for.

So let's look again at those seven foretastes mentioned in the last thought on Advent. Like the Great Commandments each can be considered ‘Great’ because of their source.

First, the Great Expectation, His triumphant return when, like a gigantic explosion, He bursts on the scene. The inner light He lit in us with His Spirit will be an illumination of a magnitude far beyond the brilliance of the sun but not blinding. We will see as we have been seen. Jesus is that light.

Second, the Great Faith we have been building will be the spiritual reality visualized personally. Faith will be visible to the heart of faith. Love will be visible to the loving heart. Grace will be visible to the eye of the ‘born again’ soul.

Third, the Great Awakening to the fullness of fellowship with the millions upon millions who have become the fullness of relational life in the Kingdom of God. We will know as we are known among the faithful who surround the throne of God. Our relational limitations will have been removed.

Fourth, the Great Word of God, the complete mind of God in Jesus, will be at one with us. A new dimension of thought will be able to see intellect not as something to be attained and judged by but rather the ideas of the mind of God will be expanding in detail and grasped with insight.

Fifth, the Great Consciousness of mission fulfilled into eternity. Born to share we will have been found as part of the Great Mission that Jesus began, the one He gave us to share.

Sixth, the Great Worship will be the way of life in the Kingdom as the music of God will ring out in anthems cloud and clear. Worship will be our eternal lifestyle. Worship is a conscious continual adoration and praise while we move side by side with all the faithful in the Spirit

Seventh, the Great Gifts will have been fulfilled and the joy, the happiness for which we were created, will be our complete experience. The common theme that pervades each foretaste is looking forward. They have that sense of expectation. Something is going to happen. It is anticipation. This is the character of hope.

Advent is the practice of the Great Hope. We look at Jesus and we see hope realized. He is the proof that hope is given us to see every next moment as an opportunity to be filled with belief, trust and faith. His Cross is the work of hope and our cross is our every next moment's hope in our own resurrection.

In this world foretaste is a 'hope word.' Foretaste gives hope its reality. Like faith it resonates with every anticipation that the Lord Jesus places in our path. The very fact that we hope at all, that we are so casual in our use of the word. Believer and unbeliever alike use it to address the desire for a positive outcome. It raises the understanding of reality to the level of faith and love which are as real, if not more real, than the universe in which we live. We hope for Jesus' return. We hope in the foretastes that reflect it as our future realized. “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain where Jesus, who went before us, has entered on our behalf (Heb.6:19-20).”

Now we take hold of Advent as a preparation in hope for His Second Arrival and the Kingdom prepared for us since the beginning of the world. We can practice this hope as we look forward to worship, hoping together with brothers and sisters as we sing hymns and carols, hoping as we feast together, hoping as we minister to one another and share the truth of Jesus with the world around us.