Hebrews 12:22-23: You have come to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to the sprinkled blood that speaks better than the blood of Abel.
God called Abraham from a city to a city. The city he left behind had walls, houses, rulers and people, markets and temples, a regular supply of food and water. The city he sought was invisible. Israel’s history begins with a man seeking a city that doesn’t yet exist, a heavenly one.
Abraham died without ever entering the promised city.
So did Abel and Enoch, Noah and Jacob and Joseph and Moses, Rahab and Samson and David and Israel’s martyrs. They all sought a city visible only to the imagination of faith.
God trained His people, imposing on them a pedagogy of faith so they learned to look away from what they could build to a future city whose Architect and Builder is God. God also waited to fulfill these promises until we arrived. God waited for us , so that “apart from us [the saints of old] should not be made perfect.”
Advent is entry. It is the triumphal entry of the Son of God into flesh, celebrated by choirs of angels. It is the descent of the Bridal city that comes from heaven. And it is our consequent Great Entrance into that new city, the heavenly Jerusalem, city of the living God.
When we enter, we find ourselves in the midst of a continuous liturgy. Through Jesus, we enter a liturgy that is entry from start to finish, from the call to worship until this moment, when we sit down to eat with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, when we drink the blood that speaks better than the blood of Abel.
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