Previously published as Christmas Presence: An Advent Devotional by Ray Cummings and Scott Hanberry.
Advent is a season of expectant waiting and preparation for both the celebration of the Nativity of Christ at Christmas and the return of Christ at the Second Coming. It traditionally encompasses the four Sundays leading up to Christmas and is centered around the four themes of hope, peace, love, and joy.

This devotional is a little longer; it is a 41-day journey. The number 40 shows up often in the Bible, commonly in contexts dealing with judgment or testing. Forty-one often represents victory or an end to the trial or testing. The 41 series guides you past judgment to the deliverance, past the testing to the testimony. These forty-one days of Advent readings will help you and your family prepare your hearts for the celebration of Christ's Nativity and the anticipation of His Return!

For Christians all around the world, Advent is a season of waiting. Individually and collectively we wait for the day to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. Advent is clearly tied to the coming of Christ, but what if we began to see more than just a celebration of Christmas, "The First Advent"... What if we anchored our hope in a future glance? Yes, we look forward to Christmas as a reminder of Christ's first coming in the manger in Bethlehem, but few Christians invest mental energy in anticipation of His second coming in the clouds as the judge of the world.

The word advent itself means "arrival" or "an appearing or coming into place." And so this season of Advent should be a time when we also wait with great anticipation for the ultimate arrival: Jesus' Second Coming! His arrival at Bethlehem changed everything and His promise of return secures our hope.

In this time of waiting the experience might be different from household to household and believer to believer. For some, Advent is an experience of joy, peace, and love while others desperately long for the same. Some will experience a time of family gatherings, festive meals, renewing friendships, and the reunion of relationships, while others experience empty baskets and empty chairs, separation, brokenness, and loneliness. Isolation and separation have marked the past year.

Pandemic quarantine has brought about a nagging sense of loneliness and disconnection. However, isolation and loneliness are not modern-day problems. They are as old as human relationships and they are by-products of a much deeper issue than a pandemic...they are rooted in sin.

When Adam and Eve rebelled against God, their first inclination was to hide. Simply put, sin separates. But separation was never God's intent. The story of Scripture begins and ends with the presence of God. God's desire and His design is to dwell with His people. In the book of Genesis, Eden is the first couple's home but, more importantly, it is God's sanctuary-the garden temple where the Creator and his image-bearers relate (Gen 3:8). However, their disobedience cut them off from God, Who is the very source of life. Death entered. And so, people felt the ache of separation. They felt a longing to be in His Presence. They experienced a sense of exile. And that's where Jesus steps into history and therein lies the hope of His Arrival! His Presence equals hope!

This sentiment was captured in the Christmas Carol, O' Holy Night...

Long lay the world in sin and error, pining,
'Til He appeared and the soul felt it's worth
A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn'!

Emmanuel, also called the Christ, changed the world. At that moment when God became flesh, humanity watched prophecies unfold as hope was born. Jesus, our Emmanuel, provided hope that sin and death wouldn't always win and mankind wouldn't always feel so painfully alone.

Join other believers in a 41-day journey of anticipation of God's presenc