December 2, 2025 - Imagine

 Imagine!

by: Bambi Wheeler

Tuesday, December 2, 2025

Imagine living in Israel at the time of Jesus’ birth:

• Your king is Herod, and he was appointed “King of the Jews,” but only as a political ploy. When it benefited him, he would lean on his Jewish heritage, but his loyalty was to Caesar and not God. He was a powerful man, but he was ruled by paranoia, insecurity, and a hunger for greatness.
• You have the Temple to worship in, but even that has been defiled by Herod and his ambition. He is determined to make it the biggest, best, and most beautiful temple in all of history. It’s a sight to behold, for sure, with all its marble and golden splendor. But it’s not God’s design, and it’s quickly become known as “Herod’s Temple,” not God’s.
• Although you are living in the land God promised your people, you’re not really free.  Everything you “own” actually belongs to Rome, and they can take it from you whenever they want. You’re a resident in the land, but you’re not a citizen.
• It is becoming increasingly difficult to feed your family. You are taxed at every turn. You have Caesar’s tax, Herod’s tax, and the Temple tax. It feels like there will be a breaking point when it finally becomes too expensive to simply live.

The world feels dark and heavy, and it almost feels foolish to expect that anything better could be coming. And yet, you cling to the hope of these words from the prophet Isaiah:

The people who walk in darkness 

    will see a great light. 

For those who live in a land of deep

    darkness, a light will shine.”

A light will shine, but when? And then, behold! Good news brought great joy to all people, and a baby was born in Bethlehem: the Messiah, the Lord. And the words of Isaiah rang true:

“For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given,

and the government will be on his shoulders.

And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,

Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

Finally, the Messiah has come, but it doesn’t look anything like you imagined it would. Rome is still ruling over Israel, taxes are still real, and there is religious and political turmoil at every turn. And yet, you have this unexplained feeling of peace, because His arrival changed the way you live in expectation. You suddenly have the ability to look for light, even in the midst of darkness.

And that is what we get to celebrate now as we enter this Advent season. We celebrate this way of living in expectation. And when I say “Advent season,” I really don’t mean Christmas, though I DO love all things Christmas: the decorations, the lights, the cookies (oh my gosh… ALL the cookies), the music (yes, I really do enjoy it, and it really is okay if you want to start playing it in November), the whole shebang. But this “Christmas cheer” that I enjoy so much is fleeting. It’s here for a month, or maybe two if I can convince the grinches in my life to let me bask in it before Thanksgiving, but then it’s all neatly packed away for another year.

But living in expectation shouldn’t be fleeting or based on warm and fuzzy feelings associated with garland and twinkling lights. Our hope rests in something so much deeper. His birth was His first coming, and He will come again. That kind of expectation isn’t something I pull out for a season and put away in a storage bin. It’s the posture I’m invited to live in every single day.

So if we are meant to live with this posture of expectation all year long, what does that actually look like? What should we be doing while we wait?

Well, first I want to share what I shouldn’t be doing, and because I find lists exceedingly helpful, I will provide one:

• I should NOT be predicting the rapture. If Jesus didn’t know the time, then friends, neither do we. I have lived through a minimum of five highly publicized non-raptures, and each one is more bizarre than the last. In the one where we were all supposedly left behind in September, I saw a post from an influencer who had received a private message from a lady who was planning on being raptured and needed someone to take care of her dog when she was gone. Because of this influencer’s lifestyle, she was fairly certain he’d be left behind, but he did love animals, and she felt like he’d be qualified to take good care of her dog. His response was, “What?! Am I not invited to heaven?!” While we are waiting on Jesus, let’s maybe not try to schedule His arrival, and let’s not leave a single living soul off the invite list. Let’s NOT do that.
• I should NOT be running around screaming “the sky is falling!” and causing general panic. Are we living in the end times? God only knows. Are things not great right now? No, they really aren’t. Is this season of life the worst it’s ever been? Check out the beginning of this post and you’ll see that it’s probably not. 
• I should NOT be turning on my neighbors. We certainly have different ways of interpreting Scripture, responding to tragedies, and dealing with difficult times, but when we vilify our brothers and sisters, we are in complete opposition to Scripture. Since we don’t have Paul here to write us a new letter telling us to pull it together, we might need to lean a little more heavily on the ones we already have.

So what should we be doing while we wait? Be a friend to those who need it. Lend a hand when we can, but never make someone feel like they owe you for doing them a favor. Share His love in real and tangible ways. Be His hands and feet while you’re here on this earth. His first coming showed us how to love, and the time we have while waiting for His second coming gives us the chance to demonstrate that love to a lost and broken world.

God of promise,

waiting is hard, but I know You are near.

Shape my heart to see Your blessings in the in-between,

and give me patience to welcome Your light when it comes.

Amen