Victor and I are diving into something really close to my heart—what Advent is truly about. It’s so easy to let this season slip by in the rush to Christmas, but Advent is such a gift if we really lean in. It’s not just about lighting candles or decorating—it’s about inviting Christ into the deepest parts of our lives.

We talk about how Advent challenges us to open the doors we’ve kept locked for far too long—the places of shame, hurt, and brokenness. Jesus came into the world as a baby, humble and vulnerable, and He’s waiting to come into our hearts in the same way.

In this episode, we break open scriptures like John 1 (“The Word became flesh”), Isaiah 61 (“He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted”), and Philippians 2 (“He emptied himself…”) to explore why Christ came and how we can prepare ourselves to welcome Him fully. We also share personal stories about letting Jesus into the messiness of our lives and what happens when we do.

I’m praying this episode inspires you to make this Advent more than just a countdown to Christmas. Let’s prepare our hearts, invite Him in, and let His light shine in our darkest places.

Well, welcome back to the Pew everybody. I’m your host, John Edwards, and here across the table from me. Is my co host and cohort Victor Adams. Yeah. I feel like I’ve been on sabbatical for a while. It seems like I’ve been busy, busy band. Tell us all this stuff about, uh, giving a Tuesday. Yeah, it was a lot of stuff, man.

First of all, like we’ve, it feels like sabbatical. Cause I think we did two or three episodes in a row together, like at one time. So it’s been several weeks. I know we thought about getting the wardrobe over here. That way we can change three, three shows in one day. And that guy’s what y’all wouldn’t know, but you know, if he had the same.

Yeah. Cause I think I took my vest off on one of those. So I saw the same under, you know, the button down under it, but the vest was gone. It’s kind of like Clark Kent and his glasses, I guess. I’m a different person. That’s right. But no, we did some episodes together, uh, there. So you and I hadn’t been together in a couple of weeks in here.

And then I had Heather Kim on last week that did the, uh, encountering Emmanuel on Advent and her book. Uh, it was really great to spend time with Heather. She’s great. Yeah, she is. She’s, she’s, uh, she’s a gift and we share a similar heart. Like I noticed a lot of the similar. ways that we talk about the Lord and preach about the Lord.

And it was just, it was neat to get to spend that time with her. I look forward to more opportunities in the future, you know, to, to minister with her and then her husband, Jake, who works with Dr. Bob too. I just love hearing people that just dive so deep in the Holy spirit. Yeah. I mean, it’s like, it’s so encouraging for me to go like, man, I can do that too.

Yeah. Yeah. She’s awesome. And she’s great at that. Um, but yeah, so we’re in here. As a follow up, you know, it’s our first Advent episode together this season, so I’m excited for that. Happy Advent, everybody. Yeah, happy Advent. That’s for sure. Fresh off an Advent retreat with Marie Miller the other night in her own parish, it went really well.

We had a lot of people there. It’s a beautiful night. A lot of people going to confession and just worked with Marie to call people into this time of preparation and understanding, you know, really, even though it’s a season, this is the way we need to enter in and, and the, Posture we need to have in our life all the time.

So it’s been a whirlwind of a few weeks. You know, Jacob broke his arm over Thanksgiving in two places. We’re still trying to get that surgery done and all that. And so folks out there, if you don’t mind, throw us prayer up for my son, Jacob and, uh, healing and for the surgeons, hopefully we can have that done.

But, uh, but yeah, so there’s a lot going on. I’ve just, you, you alluded to giving Tuesday. I wanted to thank everybody, uh, here in the beginning for, uh, All the giving they they gave on giving tuesday and before that we had advanced giving we wound up hitting our goal Um, we beat it by a thousand dollars or so And it was a lot of last minute stuff.

There was a lot of advanced giving there was a lot in between So thank you to anybody that gave whether it was 20 bucks five bucks a thousand dollars, whatever it was Thank you for giving uh in supporting our ministry It means the world and many of you sent nice comments and just kind things. You said You You know, is why you were giving it and all of that.

So thank you. It’s going to allow us to continue to move forward, to bring on the people we need to, um, right now we were in the, in the need of hiring a full time admin. Uh, my friend Derek has been working with me. He’s moved on to another ministry. And so we wish him the best and thank you for all the work he did here.

But we’re going to need some admin work. Uh, so if somebody, if you’re open to that or you have those skills, please apply. Yeah. Apply. You can send me an email at, uh, john at pew ministries. org. And we’ll look at that and see if it’s a good fit. Um, also we’re looking to hire missionaries to bring on the night train to Victor.

So that’s something else we’re doing there. But thank you all for helping us hit our goal. Um, you know, we. We put together a good campaign, a campaign. Derek really did a lot with that. And he was the reason we did so well with it. So thank you, Derek, for that. Uh, and all the work you did, but really folks, all of you that give each and every month, you’re the reason we get to do this and continue to do it.

So thank you. And please know that we’re going to use that ministry to help bring more men into healing and restoration each and every day, uh, through our Paris groups and through this podcast and through everything else. Uh, finally, I just want to tell folks that if you didn’t hear in the last couple of weeks with the black Friday sale and all of that.

Um, we are, I want to announce here again that I’m going to be going to Greece and Turkey. We’re going to be walking in the footsteps of St. Paul. I’m going to go alongside Father James Clark from here in the Diocese of Memphis. We’ve already started filling the trip. I think there’s already 10 or 12 people that are signed up in the first few days of So it’s a limited space.

I think we’re taking 45 people. It’s going to be one bus, but it’s going to be an amazing trip. You’re going to go to Athens Ephesus and Corinth and Thessalonica and all these other sites. You’re, you’re going to be able to go on a four day, a GNC cruise. You’re going to go to all these islands like Mykonos and.

And Patmos and all these places. It’s going to be great fun, but also food and you’re gonna learn a lot. Yeah, that’s the thing. It’s, you’re going to see the culture, the food, the drink, all that stuff, but you’re going to immerse yourself in the New Testament. I mean, really, what, what happened from Acts and beyond, um, beyond the gospels is where we’re going to be.

And you’re going to get to walk in the footsteps of St. Paul. You’re going to see where he preached. We’re going to visit the churches he wrote letters to, obviously, and the ones I mentioned there. Um, we’re going to Be able to visit the house where, uh, the blessed mother was said to have spent her last days before the assumption.

Um, obviously going to get to, to spend time in the cave, the grotto area of Patmos where St. John wrote revelation. Um, and then you’re going to visit the seven churches of revelation. So there’s so much there, places where Paul and Silas preached in so much Greek history and mythology and all that stuff at those places too, that we’re going to see.

So we’d love to have you with us. And I can tell you as always do if you travel with us. I can guarantee you that you’re going to feel seen, loved and heard that I’m going to spend time with you. I’m going to be glad you’re there. Father Cork’s going to be the same way. We’re going to laugh. We’re going to have fun.

We’re going to help you build memories that are going to last a lifetime. Not only are you going to grow in your faith, but you’re going to grow in relationships that you can have for the rest of your life. All of our pilgrims have experienced that, and I can’t wait to bring more and some old ones along with us.

So folks, if you want to, we’re headed to Greece and Turkey, September 9th through the 20th of 2025. So you can check the show notes down below. There’s a link there for the, uh, for the pilgrimage. Or if you want to, you can go to our website and now at the top, it says events, book John and pilgrimages. You can click that and you can find the links there below our calendar on our bookmeet page.

But folks, we’d love to have you. And again, If you’re going to do it register soon, because it’s going to fill up fast and we’re limited to 45 spots. So hope you’ll join us. Hope you’ll consider it and look forward to seeing you there in Greece and Turkey next year. So Vic, uh, now that that’s out of the way, and we can really focus on where we are in this episode.

And at the end of this year, Um, you know, we always like to do stuff in the liturgical seasons of the church and the church and all of her majesty and all of her, her intelligence and her great wisdom gives us these times of the liturgical year so that we stop and we pause and we quiet ourselves and we reflect on, on what we’re doing.

And, you know, I gave this talk the other night at this Advent retreat with Marie, it was really great and it was a lot of fun. It’s her beautiful voice. It was just, she’s amazing. Um, but I didn’t know what I was really going to say and I started praying into all this stuff and the name of the, of the retreat was preparing the way of love because her album is called the way of love.

And so she was going to present on St. Therese and tie in some of those things to Jesus in Advent. And so I just. You know, called my talk preparing the way of love, the word made flesh. And as I started to ponder and to read and to think about all this stuff, I started thinking about, man, what is it, what I really want to talk to people about and what I want to invite people into.

And while Advent is a penitential season, right? It’s, it’s one that’s often treated like the redheaded stepchild of the church. You know, I said that to Heather on the last episode too. Because when we think of these, these seasons, the church Lent is like, you know, King, and it should be because, you know, we get invited to walk into the desert with our Lord for 40 days.

We get invited into his passion. Um, you know, we, we, we’re there with him at the cross and his life, death and resurrection. Right. And, and, and there’s just, it’s such a powerful time to remember what the Lord has done for us. But. If you really stop and think about it, none of that would have been possible if the God of the universe hadn’t decided that he wanted to take on flesh and be born as a, as a, as a child, as a baby and to go through 33 years of life, um, before he even began or 30 years of life before he really began his mission.

Of redemption for the world as far as you know, what we know and what we see in the scriptures. Yeah. So he took on these things. He made himself vulnerable. He became this baby and was born in a feeding trough in a, in a town called the house of bread. Right. That’s what be mm-hmm. Bethlem means, and this foreshadowing of the Eucharist and all of these things.

But so often as you know, Victor, like we can get into the, the fray of the world and the rat rat race of the, of the season from Halloween on. Right. You hit Thanksgiving, you’re doing all the stuff. You’re, you know, going to both sides of the families doing all that. You’re barely done burping up the turkey.

And then all of a sudden it’s the first day of Advent, which really happened quick this year. You know, it was like Thursday, Sunday Advent. And so. We go from the Thanksgiving and all those things to Advent. And then what is, what really happens? Our mind goes from Thanksgiving to Christmas because quite honestly, they’re putting out, you know, Christmas stuff in July now, 4th of July, there’s Christmas stuff out.

And so the world’s pushing for their commercialism and all those things and to concentrate on Santa Claus and all the Hallmark movies and all that junk instead of what it’s really about. And. So, Advent, a lot of the time, gets looked over. It’s like, alright, let me throw my pink and purple candles out there.

Let me get out my chocolate Advent each day, a little piece of chocolate and eat it. And, you know, maybe try to go to some church a little bit more. But really what it is, is this time of waiting and preparation for the coming of the Lord. Now, the Lord’s already been born, right? We’re celebrating His first coming, uh, as a child in Bethlehem.

Here in Christmas in a few weeks, but really also what we’re celebrating is the, is, is what’s to come. Right. Right. This preparation and waiting for the, for the second return of the King. Right. Where he’s going to come back and, and, and, and bring everything to justice and, and, you know, and, and to, uh, us to fulfillment.

Right. Right. So this is where we are, but for so often, that’s what I meant by being a redhead stepchild, like Advent’s just kind of like, Oh yeah, it’s the purple season. Yeah. You know, candles and wreaths. And then eventually they’ll put up the trees and, and we blow by it. And if we do that, we’re really missing a.

A beautiful opportunity to journey with our Lord and to prepare and to really invite him into our hearts to see not only where To remember that he wasn’t only born into this world But he wants to be born into our lives and not just wherever we are in the moment But like every portion of our lives He wants to be born into every moment every situation every difficulty every suffering every joy is what he wants to be born into and That’s why in the past we’ve had shows called The Word Made Flesh or The Word Was Made Flesh and Has The Word Been Made Flesh in Your Life?

And that’s something I think we’re going to discuss again a little bit today and just really try to bring the further attention to Advent because I don’t want this to go by, you know, there have already been one week in the season that went by and there’s only like three and a half weeks of Advent this year.

So, um, I really want people to be able to enter into this and to receive Advent for what it is. In the moment to prepare for what we’re preparing for, but for the greater vision of really looking at what this means for the rest of your life. I mean, you, you kind of did exactly what, um, I was going to say is that Advent is, is sometimes it’s a blend of Christmas in a sense of, you know, it’s like, almost like we celebrate Jesus, but we don’t really like, um, Um, explore what that means because we’re distracted, like you said, by, by movies and by, uh, gifts and so like that.

But a lot of us know that the connection between the gifts or the connection of the Magi giving to Jesus Christ and then the history for that. But really for me, like Advent is a time for just being thankful, just being appreciative of, of the things that I have been awakened to. In my life, my spiritual sense of my connection with the Holy Spirit, with Christ, but also, like you said, Christ coming down, taking on flesh, becoming human, fully human, fully divine.

And, and also, it allows, I think it allows us to be more sensitive to God. To knowing Christ because he went through a lot of things we’re going through, you know, like he knows what it’s like to, to be talked bad about. He knows what it’s like to be rejected. He knows what it’s like to try to help someone who, who people who refuse, like the Pharisees, you know, like if you only knew why I was here, you would be celebrating my, my, my, my entry into this world, you know, like he would say stuff like that all the time, you know?

And just imagine how like happy he was when people got it and how disappointed and sad that people didn’t connect with what he was trying to say. Um, and, and for us, you know, for, for this season, we had to be careful and sure what we connect with, connect with the loving, the lovingness of a, of a, of an amazing and merciful God, you know, and be thankful for, you know, your family, your job, even though things happen, suffering happens, and it may not have gone the way that you wanted.

But the thing is, is, is, Is that you have things to look at and say, God, thank you for this. You know, thanks for allowing me to, to realize who you are in my life. Thank you for, even though the gifts are great and everything else, but thank you for allowing me to have time with my family, you know, and, and I think we really kind of have to be careful about.

Uh, you know, grading what this, this season is all about. Sure. You know, well, and I mean, it is the way the church looks at it. It’s two different seasons, right? It’s you have Christmas and then you have Advent, right? So Advent is really dispreparing and the journey of the Magi and all these things as we draw closer to Christmas and all of that, but it’s, you know, it draws, it begs the question what you were talking about, which is like, Why, why did the Lord come?

Like, why did he come? And it was to enter into our mess. It was to enter into our brokenness. It was to save us. You know, where the catechism says, um, where Jesus Christ humbled himself to become man, where Adam, um, uh, uh, asserted himself to become like God. Right. So because of that, that assertion of Adam to say, no, like I want to be my own God with Eve, everything was severed.

Everything was broken. And so Jesus comes to right the wrongs, to be the new Adam, where the old Adam, uh, messed up and made mistakes, and where he calls the brokenness and the sin and the death that’s coming to the world. So Jesus comes to restore, he comes to reconcile, right? And that’s why I love really three readings that I like to read this time of year that kind of get me in the mindset of Advent and really helped me kind of start looking deeper into why Christ came, because.

As I said, when you look about Lent, we think it draws us, Jesus Christ is our savior. And while yes, he is, he did come to save us. Um, you know, through his life and death and resurrection, he also came as healer. Mm-hmm . Right? He came as healer. He, he came as, as this divine physician. And that’s really what we hear when we read some of these readings and what he wants to do in us.

So he’s coming to reconcile, which means to heal. He’s coming to heal that broken relationship, and that means that he has to heal things in us, right? Or the things that we don’t want anybody to see. The shame, the things that we have locked away, the, the difficulties. The wounds that we have, the wounds that we’ve, you know, put into other people, like the Lord wants to come into all of that brokenness.

And he chose to do that. He looked at his father and said, I’ll go, you know, send me. And then I will take their place. I’ll take on all of that so that there’s a, there’s an open door. There’s a reconciliation for them to become. Part of the the holy family of God again, right? And and so I love reading John 1 parts of it because it just really gets me into the mindset and and Really talks about some of these truths.

And so I want to read that really quickly So John 1 1 in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God He was in the beginning with God, all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came for testimony to bear witness to the light that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness to the light. The true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world knew him not. He came to his own home, and his own people received him not. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth. We have beheld His glory, glory as if the only begotten Son from the Father. And from His fullness we have all received grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father.

He has seen and made Him known. Man, I love that and it gives me chills every time I read it. I mean, just all of it talking about the light was coming to the world and the darkness could not overcome it. And that’s what Jesus came to do. All of us have that darkness. And, and again, we have the tendency, Victor, to read something like that and go, Oh yeah, he came in because there was so much darkness in the world then.

Well, look around you now. Mm hmm. Not only in the world around us, but also in our own hearts, in our own lives, the darkness that we can find ourselves in, the brokenness, the, the way we get off track, the way that we get off the beaten path. And the Lord wants to come into that brokenness. And so we say, like, why did he, he come?

And, and what I told people here tonight was, He came to do these things, to reconcile, to call us to repentance, to call us to healing, and to call us into relationship. Like that’s what he came to do, relationship with the Father. And we see that said here in this first passage from John. It says, but to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God.

That’s what we were originally. And then everything was severed when we made mistakes, right? When Adam and Eve chose themselves over God, as the catechism says. And so now Jesus comes to give power to those, to become children of God. Again, this is the reconciliation that he’s talking about that I’m talking about here.

He comes so that we can become children of God and we stop identifying ourselves with children of the world or, or, or. Uh, children of brokenness and children’s of mistake and some of mistakes and all those things. It’s for us to become children of God, right? And so Jesus, it says, as Paul says in other parts of scripture, became poor so that we could be rich in his grace.

He came to pour out his grace over us, which is the only reason that we are ever found worthy for redemption is because of his grace and his love. And so he comes the word was made flesh He chose to bring on flesh and he doesn’t want to just be made flesh 2, 000 years ago He wants to be made flesh in our life right here right now each and every day In the midst of our burdens in the midst of our mistakes in the midst of our problems In the midst of our hardships and our difficulties right of our calamities That’s what saint paul means when he says that in second corinthians 12 9 Like when I’m weak, when I’m strong, come into my burdens, my hardships, my difficulties, because I need you.

And so he humbles himself. And this Advent season is a call for us to remember that and to follow in his footsteps, to humble ourselves and to allow him into our lives for him to be born, not only into this world, but into every possible place in our hearts and in our lives. But Victor, as you all know, the problem is so many of us, this knowledge stays here in our heads and it never moves our heart, which is the place of transformation.

Right. And you’re talking about the compatiwhat is it? Let me say this real quickly, correctly. Combativeness of the heart. Yeah. Where the heart, there’s a lot of wounds in the heart. I think our mind, we, we recwe remember things or remember situations or, but it’s like, we feel everything emotionally here.

So when something doesn’t agree with how we want to feel or how we want to feel at that time, we ignore it. Like I said, if I’m angry, I want to be angry, you know? If I’m frustrated, I’m going to be frustrated. If I’m going to be appreciative, then I’m more appreciative. But if we’re not, like, focused on the emotion that we are at a time, we can dismiss a lot of the things that God’s trying to give to us, or other people are trying to share with us as well.

Um, you know, like I said, I’ve been in the hospital chaplain. Uh, at the VA in the St. Jude Hospital and, um, I’ve been witness to many, many blessings, many miracles, uh, many aspects of the human condition of wanting reconciliation with God. You know, where people carry burdens for their whole lives, and even though they may not be Catholic, I’ll be honest with you, there’s a deathbed confession for everybody.

Yeah. You know, because there’s, there’s this awakening of like, oh my gosh. Um, this is it, and I need to make things right. I need to apologize, or I need to kind of like, I need to do something right now that’s not selfish. Sure. Um, and I wish to God that everybody had that experience, you know? Some people are just going to be the way they are going to be, but, you know, the change of heart is, like you said, the most crucial aspect of being a Christian.

Because when you remove the selfish intentions, or the anger, or the pain, and the hurt that people, other people cause you, and you hold onto that, it’s like you said before in other shows, it’s poison. Yeah. And we’re dosing ourselves with poison, expecting us to be healed, but yet you’re, we’re the ones that aren’t taking the antidote, which is Christ.

No, you’re a hundred percent right. And, and this is why we need in this season of preparation to start asking those things like, Jesus, where do you want to be born into my life? What is it that you know me better than I do Lord? And, and where do you want to go? And, and, and, and trusting him and giving him permission.

That’s why he does these other things. Like he comes to reconcile any, and that starts with repentance, right? Like he calls to. He calls us to repentance. What is the first thing he says when he’s of age and he’s been baptized? What does he say? The first thing in his mission, uh, you know, um, uh, repent and believe in the gospel, right?

He says the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel. The first thing he does is call us to repentance out of our, he calls us out of our brokenness and what is repentance really? It’s an invitation. To be honest, to be truthful, to be vulnerable with ourselves, right? We, we all know what we struggle with.

We know the things that aren’t healed. We know the things that are like, uh, uh, a rock in our shoe that every time we stay, take a step hurts. And we were just trying to gently step instead of trying to take the shoe off and remove the rock. And this is what we’re so many of us are. And he comes into this brokenness and into this broken world and into our lives to call us into that repentance.

And out of that vulnerability, it’s witnessed in his whole life. Like it’s bookended in jesus’s life like from the beginning at christmas. He comes into the world as a baby he doesn’t come into some triumphant king as as the Uh as as the jews thought he would as this military messiah that would come in with just armies and destroy the romans He comes in as this little child, as Heather said last week, that could be easily dropped, right?

That could be hurt. And she said, and we did eventually hurt him, right? We hurt him badly. We took his life, but he comes up in this vulnerable state. And then at the end of his life, he’s the most vulnerable man that’s ever lived on the planet. As he stretched out in the crucifix on the wall behind you offering everything, there’s nothing of me that you don’t have.

There’s nothing that I haven’t given right that vulnerability and so he calls us to repentance which is an an opportunity To to to mirror that vulnerability to say lord like I am broken. I am I am struggling. I can’t fix myself I need you. I haven’t been the person I need the things you were talking about on the deathbed confessions Like we don’t have to wait till our deathbed that.

Christ comes to give us that opportunity to be honest and vulnerable about our lives so we can repent and clear those things out and then we can look to heal. That’s the other thing he came to do, right? To reconcile us. He calls us to repentance and then he calls us to healing. And that’s one of my other favorite readings, which I’ve read a bunch of times on this podcast and I want to read again now is Isaiah 61, right?

But it’s this prophecy. And, and, and I love this because it reminds me in, in, in context, in conjunction with the word becoming flesh. Why? Well, here’s your answer. The spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to bring good tidings to the afflicted. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who are bound to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God.

To comfort all who mourn to grant to those who mourn in zion to give them a garland instead of ashes The oil of gladness instead of mourning the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit that they may be called oaks of righteousness The planting of the lord that he may be glorified He came to heal us to reconcile us to the father So that we can glorify God, we can become the people we’re called to be.

And so, so many people, they think, as we’ve talked about a million times here, Victor, like, why should I care about Advent? Why should I give my life to Christ? What could he want with me? You have no idea what I’ve done. You don’t know how broken I am. You don’t know how messed up I am. You don’t know the mistakes I’ve made, what I’ve done to my family and to myself, or what’s been done to me.

But Jesus’s answer is the spirit of the Lord God is upon me. And I’ve been sent. To. Bring good tidings to the afflicted. Every one of us is afflicted. He sent me to bind up the broken hearted. All of us are broken hearted because of our mistakes and falling short of the glory of God because of sin and death to proclaim liberty to the captives.

How many of us are bound, right? How many of us are captive in our own addictions and our own prison cells that we’ve locked ourselves into, right? Because we’re so afraid to let anybody really see us because they may not, they may abandon us. Right. Those inadequacy wounds, those abandonment wounds. Then he says, I’m here to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who are bound.

All of us are bound to sin, right? To give us good tidings and gladness and all of these things to replace the brokenness that we’ve been walking around in this world for so long. To bring us joy. That’s what he says. I’ve come so that you may know my joy and that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.

Right? This is who Jesus is. And so many people see God and Jesus as something different and something that’s waiting to punish them and all that stuff. But here Jesus tells you that. And then guess what? When we’re healed, when we’re set free, when, when our hearts are mended, then we have the opportunity to, to claim this prophecy as our own.

To go out and to do for others this same goodness that Jesus did for us. That’s why he came to reconcile us to bring us into relationship. Well, he brings you and I into relationship Victor so that not so we can sit in it and revel in it go Yay, look at me. I’m a child of God. That’s great And we need to live from that identity and that knowledge But the purpose of that is so that we go out and we tell others that you’re a child of God that has worth That it was worth dying for That God has a plan for your life and all that begins with Jesus choosing to come as healer To do what we could not we couldn’t heal ourselves That’s why he says the light shines in the darkness that light coming into that darkness is the healing he wants to bring in our life It’s just like when you’re in a dark room and you’re in your maybe you’re a kid and you’re scared to death and you’re freaking out And there’s all these fears and And ideas of what could be in the room lurking and waiting for you.

That’s what it’s like when we’re caught up in all of our brokenness and all of our pain and our problems. But if you have a match, if you just like one single match, the light overcomes the darkness, right? It takes away all those fears. It takes away all those ideas of what could happen and what may happen.

There’s nothing but the truth. Right? There’s nothing but the truth and the light shines on all of that. And that’s who Jesus is. So he comes to heal. And this Advent season is an invitation to let him begin to do that as we’re preparing for him to his birth and the celebration of that. It’s an opportunity to let him into those places of our heart, those rooms we have locked away with the hidden things that we want nobody to see.

And this is why when he came to the earth, what did he say? Do you want to be healed? What do you want me to do for you? Right? He always asked people because he came to heal. Ultimately, Jesus came to save us, but he came to heal us too. And because he’s opened the door to heaven again, the healing work starts and continually combating the lies of the devil, restoring our identity, healing our wounds.

So that we can believe he is who he says he is. We are who he says we are and we can be reconciled to the Father. So that’s what he’s trying to do. And all of that is to bring us into relationship. Well, what you’re saying also is take hope in the healing. Yeah. You know, healing, um, that comes from Christ is, The most powerful medicine that there is because it allows you to kind of like let go of the things that Have been the stumbling block for your life, whether it’s like an individual that mistreats you or You know Things that you constantly stumble upon, you know, I mean like just just all this suffering all the pains all the disappointments all the aspects of Failure that you think is failure.

We have to understand that sometimes those are things put in front of us to see You know, how will we react to that? You know, the sufferings are always a lesson of learning of life, right? Yeah, how will we receive it? Uh, as, as a parent, I see my kid going through something that’s tough, and I want to say, how are they dealing with that?

Are they, are they going to persevere? Are they going to ask for help? Are they going to like have trust and faith? You know, I think for a lot of us is that we forget to ask God for help. Yeah. You know, God helped me in this, you know, God, allow me, uh, to, to be able to find what you want me to be. Allow me to be, uh, a perspective of faith to help other people in this process.

I mean, how many times we’ve gotten a phone call from a friend that’s going through something and we just got, you know, we’re not prepared for that conversation. That is a time to say, Lord, help be part of this conversation. Like every time we, we start this show, we begin with a prayer, we end with a prayer.

Knowing that whatever the words that, There may be some script, but majority of it is something that’s just, it’s just a process of a conversation that unfolds itself in front of us. It’s the power of the Holy Spirit and believing in the Lord is going to do what he says with us. And, and yeah, that’s, that’s what he calls us to do, to heal one another, to be there, to be those hands and feet.

And, you know, I experienced that in our men’s group last night. There were some new people that came and they opened up on the very first night and shared some things that, we were Most people wouldn’t share in 10 years of knowing somebody because the air of comfortability and I think is we’ve been able to establish that with the help of the Holy Spirit in our group because people are When you’re able to be open, it allows other people to be open and trusting.

Yeah, like wow, this is an amazing group You know, I’m saying this from from my perspective of years being there It’s like when someone’s willing to share about something that is a struggle for them That takes a lot of courage and strength to do that. Yeah. And then to kind of like, after you say it, you want to immediately take it back because all of a sudden there’s this quietness and not people are judging.

Yeah. Not that the people judging you is kind of like going, you know, there’s this quiet going, what’d you do? Yeah. Eat yourself. But what you hear is like, I’ve had the same thing. I struggle with the same thing. I know how you’re feeling, brother. I will pray for you. You know, this, this, this support that comes like Christ in, in our lives, that there’s this, this automatic kind of like warmth of the power of his, of his light.

You know? Yeah. It just kind of washes over us and saying, that’s who I want you to be. I want you to be open to, to the people I put in your life. Are there because I put you there or I put that pause you’re talking about the, you know, where you’re like, Oh, what did I just do? That’s the last ditch attempt of the devil to get you to draw back.

Like you’re, you’re, you’re one foot out of the prison cell you’ve been in and he’s trying to grab you by the shirt tail and go, where are you going? Where are you going? Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t. And, and it’s just so free. And that’s why healing is so important. That’s why Christ came right to. Like I said, to heal us and, and it’s for relationship.

Cause if you think about the process, he comes to reconcile. He calls us in vulnerability to be vulnerable, to share about what we’re broken in, to be open with them, to go and ask for forgiveness, to receive that grace and mercy so that healing can begin. And when healing starts, when we start to let Jesus into these places, then what happens, trust, surrender.

Love relationship, right? Think about it. When you meet anybody in your life or your wife or whoever it is, like you immediately didn’t like meet the girl of your dreams and walk up and go, Hey, like I have tremendous foreign problems. I’m this, I’m this, I’m this, I’m broken in this way. And Hey, would you be interested in going out with me?

Like, no, because they would be like, no, what the heck? No, thank you. Who are you? Are you talking to me? But like over time, as we get to know someone and we start to journey with them, And then we start to trust more and more, right? That relationship builds and Jesus starts that relationship by inviting us to repentance, right?

Look, just admit to yourself what’s wrong in your life and then bring it to me when you’re ready. And then when you, when you bring it to me, you see that I am gentle and meek of heart, as he says in scripture, right? I’m not here to punish you. I’m not standing here with a whip to beat you because you’re a moron and you made mistakes.

I am gentle and meek of heart. My, my burden is easy and my, you know, or my yoke is easy. My burden is light. This is what he invites us into in those moments. And then he can look at you and go, look, like now that you’ve seen I’m gentle, we can start to heal and you can start to trust and all those things.

And that’s how we build relationship. That’s how you start to open up to people is when that trust and that love builds. So that repentance and that healing is a desire of relationship. And Jesus waits at the door of our hearts. And that makes me remind, it reminds me. You know growing up baptist both my parents were baptist, right?

And so when we go to their house in mississippi, they both had the same image on the wall and it was this protestant image um of jesus standing outside of a like a home with a door And like a front door of a house and always as a kid was like, why is he standing there? Like there’s nobody else in the picture And why is he just standing outside when I got a little bit older?

Later in my teens, I looked at it one day and I was like, Oh, there’s no door handle, right? So Jesus was standing outside at the ready waiting to be invited in not to kick the door into the storm in But to be invited in right so he came into the world Of his own accord, but now he waits to be invited into our own hearts And the thing is the door handle is on the other side.

Jesus isn’t going to force his way in. He’s not mean He’s not hard on us. He’s gentle and so he knocks and he waits for us To answer and invite him in and so That’s what we have to do And this is what this advent season about is inviting the lord further into our heart And so some of you may be sitting there right now going in in victor This is what some people the other night that when I gave this talk we’re thinking about they were like well Okay, John, I’m already baptized.

I’m confirmed. I do all this great Catholic stuff. I’m in adoration all the time. I’ve already let Jesus in my house. Well, the thing is our home is full of other rooms, right? And think about it. Like if somebody calls you five minutes away from your house and like, Hey man, I’m gonna swing by a minute. And all of a sudden you look around and you’re like, Oh, dude, this place is a mess.

So what do you do? You start throwing everything in cabinets and in closets. You start dumping everything in your bedroom and shutting the door. And we start to lock away these things because we don’t want people to see us as we are. We don’t want people to see these things that we’re ashamed of or that we’re not proud of.

I don’t want somebody to see that. My, my house is a mess or in the context of this, my heart is a mess. And so we let Jesus in with all these things we do as we become Christian, but Jesus wants to go further into the home, into the home of our heart, right? He wants us to open up these doors and that’s what Advent and Lent and the journey of a Christian really is, is allowing Jesus in the front door.

He’s in the foyer. But he wants to go further into the house. He wants to go into these rooms and he wants to rearrange things and he wants to help you get rid of the mess that you, that you, you, you threw away to hide and shame and help you actually get rid of it. And so that’s what this can mean. And I’m so worried in my, in my prayer every day that myself, that you, that others are missing the beauty of this time of year that we’re in, because it can, as I said, be easily I got to get the lights up and I got to go get a tree and, and you know, when is this going to be Christmas time and I got to get all the presents and when’s Amazon having their sales and all that stuff instead of like, man, what a gift.

What a gift. The church in her, in her wisdom through the knowledge of God and the love of God has given us to remember exactly what we are preparing for. And it’s what I just said at the end to let Jesus out of the fourier. Out of the front room of our home in our hearts and into the depths of those homes To really sit and to make himself a place to take up residence so that he can heal us of those things We don’t have to hide those things anymore, right?

We don’t have to throw those things in rooms The Lord has come to reconcile us by calling us to repentance, by calling us to healing, so that we can have a relationship with Him and He can take us to His Father. That is what all this is about, and this is why He was chose to be born into the world. The question is, Victor, are we going to let Him be born into ours?

Right into our hearts into our lives in a more full way than we ever have. That’s the journey of a Christian It’s not a one time thing. It’s not a one time celebration the church and her wisdom We have these same seasons every year because it’s an invitation to continue to go further in our faith each and every day And so as we close out here Victor talking about this and hopefully people will take this to heart I want to read one last verse the third passage Or one last passage, I should say, that I read every year at Advent, and it calls me into remembrance of this.

And then I just want to talk about some things that we can do as we’re, we’re moving forward in this. So this is Philippians 2, verses 5 through, um, 11. Yeah. Yeah. So there you are with that seminary degree. I also saw your notes. Yeah. Oh, there you go. Cheater. I was giving you a compliment. You didn’t deserve it.

No, but. So it says this. Have this mind among yourselves, which was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant. being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.

Therefore God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. This is what this is about.

Journeying from our brokenness and the places of shame and all those things, this is why Jesus came to reconcile us, to call us to repentance, to call us to healing, to build relationship so that we can stand up no matter what situation we’re in in our life, no matter what the circumstance, and boldly proclaim that passage I just read.

And how did it happen? Because God did something. He did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, not to be held on to, but emptied himself taking the form of a servant. So what should we do in this Advent season, the rest that we have here? And I pray that each and every one of you will do after this podcast.

I hope you can hear the passion in our voice and the cry of pleading with you to do this alongside of us is to empty yourself. Of everything forget the pride forget the the shame forget the the disgust you have with yourself and empty it all out So that the lord can come come into your life and to fill it with that Which is good with himself and give you the opportunity that you need to be reconciled and have the power to become a child of god That’s what this is about.

This is every day of our life and what we’re called to So the things I would all encourage everybody to do is start asking god questions right now Like he just pick up the Bible and start to read these passages, the ones I’ve shared. John one, Isaiah 61, Philippians two, five through 11. Sit with ’em, pray with ’em.

As you read through ’em, what stands out to you. And then start to ask God, Lord, like in Isaiah 61, where do you wanna free me? Where am I bound? Right? Where am I in captivity? Where am I mourning in my life? Like what do you, where do you want to go? In my house and in the home of my heart. What what do you want me to do where do you want an access to that?

I haven’t given you point that light shine that light into that darkness and then have the The the next prayer to lord Give me the strength and the courage to trust that you are who you say you are and to let you go in there And do the things you want to do you’ll have the most transformative advent And then realize that that is the work that we need to do every day in our lives, constantly examining ourselves and asking God, where do you want to go?

Where do you want to take up residence? And where do you want to become flesh in my life? So Victor, and to all of you out there, I hope that you’ve enjoyed this episode. I hope that it will lead you to a greater, uh, repentance and healing and relationship with the Lord and the rest of this Advent season.

As always, we’re praying for you. We’re always going to continue to do that. Thank you for listening today, and let’s take this to prayer. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen. Heavenly Father, you sent your Son, and your Son of His own will chose to take on flesh, and to become one of us.

To be born is a vulnerable baby, to walk this earth, and to die a vulnerable death. All so that we could be called into reconciliation through repentance and healing, so that we could be brought back into relationship. Lord, You and Your Son want to give us the power to become children of God. Help us to take that to heart.

And the rest of this Advent season, help us to let You into the home of our heart. To let you deeper into the residence of our homes, to unlock the doors that we’ve locked, to get rid of the shame and the brokenness and the mistakes, and all those things, to let you shine that light into that darkness, so that we can become the people that we’re called to be, so we can spend eternity with you, and we can bring others with us.

Lord, come into our hearts and set us free this Advent, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.