I Am Expecting Jesus

Advent is the season of expectation. 

Advent is the season of expecting that something great, wonderful, redemptive, fulfilling, and pregnant with promise is about to occur.

We need such a season. 

Absent an advent season in our lives – absent a season of expectation that something great, wonderful, redemptive, fulfilling, and pregnant with promise will occur in our lives – we all too often walk around with a personality which is hopelessly pragmatic, and dull. 

This is one of things which disturbs me about our present national climate. We are immersed in a season of retribution, revenge, and blame. Words of encouragement, hope, inspiration, challenge, and expectation of the good, better, and best are being drowned out by rants, ravings, retribution, and blame.

Ours is a time of deportation. Ours is a time of bearing false witness and taking retributive action without evidence of any assault. Ours is a time when a children’s birthday party is seen – not as a moment of joy – but occasion to make a statement through violence. Whatever statement is that? We need advent.

I am anxious to welcome the message of hope that is the birth of Jesus. I am expecting, as generations before me have expected, this profound manger which will bear the incarnation of joy and wonderment. I am expecting to discover what it all means for my life…and for all our lives.

John Fugelsang is a renowned actor, comedian, and broadcaster. He is also a podcaster of the acclaimed series Tell Me Everything on SiriusXM Progress. Fugelsang has written a newly released book entitled, “SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND HATE: A Sane Persons’s Guide to Taking Back The Bible From Fundamentalists, Fascists, and Flock-Fleecing Frauds.”

I am expecting the birth among us once again of the Jesus whom Fugelsang describes! I am expecting and excited about the encouragement, hope, inspiration, challenge, and expectation of the good, better, and best of Jesus. Fugelsang describes Jesus this way:

Jesus was…

A peaceful, radically nonviolent revolutionary

Who wasn’t American and never spoke English

Who hung around lepers, hookers, and crooks

Never sought tax cuts for rich Nazarenes

Was anti-wealth and anti-death penalty

Anti-public prayer, too (Matthew 6:5)

Never asked lepers for a co-pay

Never called poor people “lazy”

Never even slightly antigay

Never mentioned abortion

Supported paying taxes

And was a long-haired

Community-organizing

Authority-questioning

Anti-slut-shaming

Brown-skinned

Palestinian

Unarmed

Homeless

Jew

…but only if you believe what’s actually in the Bible.

I am a Bible Believer! I am expecting this Jesus of the Bible this season. Something great, wonderful, redemptive, fulfilling, and pregnant with promise is about to occur.