I had hoped to write in my online journal weekly but due to mid-terms and papers, it has been a month since my first and last entry! Thanks to many who have encouraged me to write and expressed interest in reading this blog. I am home for Thanksgiving break and thought I would take a moment to write as we prepare our hearts for the season of Advent. Continuing with the theme of the Veritable Trumpet, I found these words from Gregory of Nyssa (a bishop from the 4th Century) from “The Life of Moses II” (#158 & #159):

"158. [end] For the proclamation of the divine nature is a veritable trumpet filling its hearers with alarm. It was great in its impact on its hearers even in its earliest manifestation, but greater still in its later stages. 159. The law and the prophets trumpeted out the divine mystery of the incarnation, but those first sounds were too weak to penetrate unresponsive ears. The hardness of Jewish ears failed to take in the sound of the trumpets, but as they continued, the text says, the trumpets got louder. The final utterances came with the preaching of the Gospel and these did reach men’s ears. The Spirit expressing itself through various instruments made the sound successively more impressive and more forceful. For prophets and apostles were all instruments giving utterance to one spiritual sound. It was of them that the Psalmist declares, ‘Their sound is gone out into the world and their words to the ends of the earth' [Psalm 19:4]."

The law and the prophets trumpeted out the divine mystery of the incarnation. The incarnation is Jesus Christ, fully God, becoming fully human; God the Father meeting with humanity to make himself known to us in human form, through his Son, Jesus Christ. The Law (Torah) and the Prophets of the Jews make up what Christians call the Old Testament, which is filled with prophetic utterances, announcing the coming of Christ. Jesus claimed that He was the fulfillment of Scripture (see Isaiah 61:1-2, Luke 4:14-21). In the OT, when God commanded Moses to deliver his people out of bondage, Moses asked, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?’ God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites; ‘I AM has sent me to you’” (Exodus 3:13-14).

In the NT, Thomas, one of Jesus’ disciples asked, “‘Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?’ Jesus answered, "I AM the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him’" (John 14:5-7). God sent Moses to rescue his people from Pharaoh but He sent his Son Jesus Christ to rescue all of humanity from evil and death. Unlike Moses, Jesus was not merely a prophet, but was and is the great ‘I AM,’ God Himself. Jesus was not merely proclaiming truth or showing us a good way to live, He was and is the WAY, and the TRUTH, and the LIFE.

As the season of Advent is upon us (the four weeks before Christmas beginning Sunday, December 2nd of this year), let us remember that Christ coming as a newborn babe is not a myth or a cute little holiday story but the very act of God who came to bring life to each one of us. Let us not be hard of heart or afraid to share the Gospel, the Good News, of Jesus Christ to a world that does not know where it is going, does not understand absolute truth, and does not have fullness of life. Let us prepare ourselves for the coming King and sound the Veritable Trumpet louder and clearer so that our words may reach to the ends of the earth.