The church calendar turns inexorably forward.  That is a good thing, for it keeps us moving forward, despite our tendencies or desires to get stuck in a previous season or emphasis.  When we turn to Advent, it is like turning a new page.  It is a fresh start.  We go back to the central event which defines the church, the birth of Jesus Christ.  I think it appropriate that the church calendar begins with the birth of Jesus.  That is where we are now as we move into the month of December.  We celebrate with the next four Sundays, the four Sundays of Advent.
 
Each Sunday in Advent has a different emphasis.  By dividing the Christmas message into these four parts, we can provide proper focus on the most important aspects of God's action on behalf of His people.  The four Sundays of Advent are represented by the four outer candles on the Advent wreath.  Each candle has a different name, corresponding to the special emphasis of that Sunday.  If you keep the tradition of the Advent wreath and candles, you know that on the first Sunday of Advent, you light the first candle.  It is called the Prophecy Candle.  Here is the gist of that emphasis.

Prophecy was the sharing by Isaiah and other prophets the word from the Lord that He was going to do something new with His people.  There are three passages in the early chapters of Isaiah (7:14; 9:2-7; and 11:1-3) in which Isaiah expresses the word from the Lord that a child will be born, new life will come from God's people.  This new life, new person, will be special and will have a special assignment related to God's purposes in the world.  I would think that people would wonder if the current queen of Ahaz during the middle to latter eighth century, BC, might give birth to this special person who would become the Messiah.

Sadly, that did not happen.  Ahaz's son was Hezekiah, who was one of the few good kings of Judah during those centuries.  No, the prophecy was not fulfilled right away.  Not until nearly eight hundred years later did God act to fulfill what He had promised.  There were eight hundred years to wait.  Why?  We will never know.  Only God in His wisdom knows why He waited through the Assyrian rule, the Babylonian rule, the Persian rule, the Macedonian/Greek rule, the rule of the Ptolemies and Seleucids, and finally the rule of the Romans before sending the angel to make the birth announcement to Mary.

Those eight hundred years were a time of preparation.  That is the place at which we can make application of our lives today.  Preparation.  Of course, these four weeks provide us a time to prepare for our celebration of Christmas.  More than that, they remind us of the need to prepare and be ready for God to act in our own lives.  We must be ready for His call, his selection of us.  Eventually at death, we will stand before His judgment seat.  Will we be prepared?  Will we meet the judgment?  We are preparing for the birth of the Messiah.  Are you making this preparation this year?