Pining Hearts for Advent

“Joy to the world, the Lord is come!

Let earth receive her King!

Let every heart prepare Him room

And Heaven and nature sing.” -Joy to the World

“O holy night! The stars are brightly shining

It is the night of our dear Savior’s birth

Long lay the world in sin and error pining

‘Til He appear and the soul felt its worth

A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices” -O Holy Night

The words of these familiar Christmas carols have been stirring in my heart this Christmas. Around the season of Advent, we reflect on Christ’s humble first coming to earth as an infant in a stable in Bethlehem, but also His glorious second coming on that day when every knee shall bow to Him.

But this Advent, another point of reflection for me has been the the theme of pining. “Long lay the world in sin and error pining.” This is indeed the condition of the world and of the human race. We are lost in our sins and we have a God-shaped hole in our hearts, which we try to fill it with anything and everything but God. We trick ourselves into believing that our pining can be satisfied with enough money, power, or self-fulfillment. Our hearts are pining for Christ but we mistake the ache for lesser desires.

“Long lay the world in sin and error pining / ‘Til He appear and the soul felt its worth. / A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices.” Not a moment too soon nor a moment too early, God sent us “a thrill of hope.” He did not send us what we expected or thought we desired. While the Jews expected a majestic and conquering king who would restore the earthly power of Israel, this was not the type of king that was sent. Similarly, we 21st century Gentiles often sinfully pine after god-constructs such as money, power, and self-fulfillment. But God did not send us any of these things. Instead, for Jews and Gentiles alike, He sent us the one thing that our hearts were truly pining for: God incarnate. Not a majestic, conquering king, though He will come this way someday. Not as anything that could increase our power or make ourselves look better in the sight of others. Our God packaged Himself up in the body of a tiny, helpless infant and descended upon us. He gave us what we were truly pining after even before we realized it was Him.

The gift of incarnate God was what we needed all along. We needed someone like us but distinct from us. We needed lowly, because we are lowly. We needed a humble servant who knew our mess and could experience it in every possible way. We needed someone familiar with the achy, pining human heart. We needed someone who could smell the odor of the stable. But we needed holy, perfect God who could satisfy the ache and remove the stench of the stable.

In his mercy, and before we could ever conceive of such a thing to pine after, incarnate God appeared and “the soul felt its worth.” We do not realize how truly merciful His coming was until we realize what happens when we pine after other things. By desiring lesser gods, such as self-fulfillment, power, or our own false-concept of God, not only do we sadden the heart of God, but we also devalue our own hearts. Humans were designed to be completely swept away in worship of Jesus Christ, the Servant-King. This is our telos, our end goal. We were also designed to take on God’s character simply by the act of desiring Him. When we desire anything less than the one true God, we devalue our souls and become like the lesser things we worship. We unconsciously strip away our own human dignity and leave ourselves with an even more gaping hole.

Jesus knew what we were doing to ourselves, yet He mercifully came to the pining heart of the world, and “the soul felt its worth.” And He is coming again. This time, it will not be on a “silent night” or in a dark stable. It will be loud and bright, for all the world to see. We first received humble, but on that day we will receive majestic. On the cross, “It is finished” (John 19:30) was His last cry and this has become our new “thrill of hope.” Christ has come, Christ has won, and Christ shall win again. Let every pining heart prepare Him room.

Lord, thank you for satisfying our desires time and time again. Thank You for not giving us what we think we want but instead giving us what we truly need. Thank You for gifting Yourself to us. Strip away the false gods we pine after so that our hearts will increasingly pine after You and find their worth in You. Thrill our hearts with the hope of Your first and second coming. In the Name of Immanuel, God with us, Amen.