I know a person whose life was well fixed. She and her husband had a good marriage, worked a prosperous business, had three good kids. At age forty-one, he lurched forward at the breakfast table and died. Suddenly, her world
cracked. She had an unpayable mortgage, an unmanageable business, unmanageable family.
She told me, “When, for the first time in my life, I was forced, by life, to reach out for help, to address the One who laid the foundation of the world, who set the planets in motion, and brought all into being, I met a God who I discovered was adequate to the task, a God who not only cares, but who is able to help.”
I remember Dr. Will Willimon, my worship professor at Duke, used to say, “If it won’t play in a cancer ward or a shoddy nursing home for the elderly, then whatever it is, it’s not the gospel.”
For most all of us, there will someday come that moment . . . sitting in a doctor’s office, and the doctor comes back in, carrying your chart and a file 
with your x-rays, and says, “We have found something,” or when things are getting so stressful at work, you start waking up between 3:00 a.m. and dawn, when our world begins to crack, when there is a hint that we may not be as omnipotent, as capable, and competent at managing life as we think we are.
The message of Advent is not that we need a little nudge, better therapy, or a more positive outlook on life. We need God. We need to know that the One who hung the stars and set the planets in their course is there for us. We need One who not only cares, but also helps.
Who is this One that the church points to during Advent? Who is this, that the wind and the sea obey the very sound of his voice? This, this is God’s Son, the beloved, with whom, God says, I am well pleased. This is the Son of God.
