Advent Devotional - December 13, 2016

“No more let sins and sorrows grow / Nor thorns infest the ground / He comes to make His blessings flow / Far as the curse is found”

-Joy to the World

At one point, the city of Pripyat, Ukraine was a busy and growing city, dotted by apartment buildings, pristine parks, and even an amusement park. The city was only officially established in 1979, but by 1986 there were nearly 50,000 people living, working, and playing in the city. But all of that changed dramatically on April 26, 1986, when the nuclear power plant at Chernobyl, just a few miles away, exploded. Within two days Pripyat and the surrounding areas were abandoned. Thirty years later and the once promising city is now overgrown, a town taken over by weeds, animals, and decay.

What once was beautiful is now broken. That’s not just the story of Pripyat, but also our own story. When Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden (Genesis 3), the results were farther reaching than they could have possibly anticipated. Sin spread to all men, and with it sorrow, pain, struggle, and death. And it was not just humanity that felt its effects. The once fertile soil began to sprout thorns and weeds. The curse of sin meant the fracturing of all creation, so that all of creation groans in pain, waiting for redemption (Romans 8:21).

But what began that first Christmas in Bethlehem proved more powerful than the Fall, further reaching than we could ever hope. Christ came to overturn the curse of the Fall. He came not only to comfort sorrow, but to utterly uproot sin and all its effects. His blessings flow and begin unraveling the effects of the curse. The great day Isaiah saw coming has dawned: “Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come the myrtle; and it shall make a name for the LORD, an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off” (Isaiah 55:13). The once groaning creation and our own withering bodies will one day be remade beautifully. Who can help but sing!