Advent Love: Moving into the Neighbourhood

This Advent season, we invite you to join us as we reflect on the coming of Jesus and the inbreaking of His Kingdom on Earth. Together, we’ll discover how different New Ventures are learning to share the hope, joy, love, and peace of Jesus in their unique contexts and neighborhoods across Canada. 

Advent reminds us that God, in His great love, draws near to us. 

At Christmas, we recognize that God–the Creator of the universe, Sustainer of all things, Lord above all–became human, and physically entered our midst. In so doing, He quite literally became the tabernacle–the holy ground where people could enter into the presence of God.  

It’s all the more amazing to think that God “tabernacled” among us in the form of a small, delicate baby. The love of God was incarnated in this tiny and vulnerable form!

Philippians 2:7 reminds us, “...he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.” 

The incarnation–God’s coming to and for us–means God experienced the sufferings and limitations of being a human. It’s an incredible thought–and such a testament to His unfailing love! God donned human flesh and willingly submitted himself to all aspects of humanness. Just think of some of the messy, fleshy and uncomfortable intricacies wrapped up in our embodied lives. . .God understands them. He became one of us. 

Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of John 1 in the Message Bible speaks to this powerfully. We read: 

“The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighbourhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son, Generous inside and out, true from start to finish.” 

Jesus moved into the neighbourhood. In His great love for us, He left the glory of the heavenly realm to enter this fallen, broken world. In a way, He departed from the very best and most ideal “neighbourhood,” to step into ours, which is obscured by sin and death. 

Why? To live among us. And so we would see His glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:14, NIV). 

This past year, we’ve celebrated the start of 14 New Ventures, 5 Discerning Communities, and 7 Apprenticeships. And each of them mirror and embody incarnate love in their unique contexts. 

For many leaders, these initiatives required leaving what they knew, to follow Jesus into a new thing, in a new place. This requires real sacrifice–and it’s the Way of Jesus. 

When Jesus invites His disciples to follow Him, He calls them to live incarnationally. As Apprentices and leaders of New Ventures and Discerning Communities have joined Him on mission across Canada, they’ve all imitated Him in this way. They, too, have “moved into the neighborhood,” responding to the needs of a particular place and community. And they do this, ultimately, so Jesus–and “His one-of-a-kind glory”–might be encountered there. We are so encouraged by their commitment to creating spaces and gatherings, holy grounds in themselves, where the presence of God is experienced. 

Responding to this call is, at times, vulnerable, messy, and difficult. . .and almost certainly uncomfortable. But “moving into the neighborhood” powerfully mirrors the heart of the incarnate God, who displayed His love for the “least of these” by becoming one of them, living among them, serving them and giving himself up for them (Matthew 25:40). 

This Christmas, may we savor this love that always draws near. May we rejoice in the enduring truth that Jesus is Immanuel, God with us. And may we follow the way of incarnate love in the spaces, neighborhoods, cities and communities we are called to.