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My family fosters dogs. What a joy it is to watch these traumatized dogs begin to live again as they receive the love that we shower upon them! Having that many canine ears in our house means that it is really tough to approach undetected. My dogs know someone is coming long before I do. So when I hear the howlalleuia chorus erupt I quickly go to find out who has come. I’m thankful for the dogs because I don’t want to miss any of the guests who come to our house. We miss visitors for a variety of reasons. Maybe the music was turned up too loud so we didn’t hear the doorbell. Perhaps we were sleeping or out shopping or down in the basement doing laundry. In any case, we didn’t even realize that they came.

The season of Advent is spectacular because we celebrate a God who comes to His people. In just about a month we will celebrate the birth of the Christ child and welcome a God who comes as a little baby to save His people from their sins. Jesus comes to His people humble and mounted on a donkey as he enters into Jerusalem to suffer and die. He comes to us today on every page of our Bible and in the water of Holy Baptism and in his body and blood in the Lord’s Supper. Don’t miss that. God hasn’t withdrawn. God doesn’t sit back and watch. God comes to us every day to give us the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. God comes to strengthen our faith so that we can walk with him. Finally, Jesus has promised that he will come again on the Last Day to bring us to our heavenly home where every tear will be wiped away and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore because we will be living in God’s immediate presence. During this season of Advent we worship a God who came in history, who comes today and who will come again!

Jesus says that on the Last Day he will come again in glory accompanied by all the angels. Nobody will miss his return on the Last Day! Unfortunately, it was easy to miss Jesus when he was laying in the manger and it is still easy to miss him today. It is easy to be so busy that we don’t realize that God is in our midst with incredible gifts. But God’s invitation to come and find the Christ child is so much better than the barking of my dogs. At the birth of Jesus the angels cried out, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” (Luke 2:14) The angels invite you to find the Christ child today just as they invited the shepherds over 2,000 years ago!

Rev. Matthew Sorenson is the pastor at St. John’s Lutheran Church. He can be reached at pastor@stjohnsfarmville.org.