You will be reading these words on Thanksgiving Day or soon thereafter. In our liturgical calendar this means we are just hours away from the beginning of the season of Advent. It is fair to say that we Episcopalians tend to focus on half of the two-fold purpose of Advent. That is, we think of Advent as being primarily/only about remembering Jesus’ “first coming”, as the lead-up to our celebration of his birth. We are less comfortable thinking or talking about Jesus’ future “second coming”, despite that being an intended emphasis of the season. This is not surprising given what the notion of Jesus’ return often brings to mind: apocalyptic, “end-of-the-world” images that instill fear. We are happy to remember and celebrate Jesus’ birth, but we would rather not think about his return and what that might mean for existence as we know it.
Rather than being a source of fear about the “end-of-the-world”, I believe the notion of Jesus’ “second coming” actually invites us to a place of hope. I do not think we are meant to focus anxiously on what his return will look like or when it will occur, but rather on what it means for us in the present. What does it mean, here and now, that Jesus will be coming back? What does it mean, here and now, when we echo the cry of John of Patmos, saying “Come, Lord Jesus”?
Richard Rohr, in his book Preparing for Christmas: Daily Meditations for Advent, suggests the following:
“...perfect fulfillment is always to come, and we do not need to demand it now. This keeps the field of life wide open, and especially open to grace and to a future created by God rather than ourselves.This is exactly what it means to be ‘awake’ as the Gospel urges us! We can also use other “a” words for Advent: aware, alive, attentive, alert, awake are all appropriate!”
When we proclaim that “Christ will come again”, we do so without any real knowledge of the details or the timing of his return (Jesus said that even he himself does not know the timing!). Despite what some might have us believe, this core tenet of our faith is not meant to be fear-inducing, but rather an acknowledgement that Jesus’ work of reconciliation and salvation is an on-going process - both “now” and “not yet”. This gives us the freedom to let go of the need to know the how or the when. We are not called to be anxious about the future, but we are called to be alert and attentive to Christ’s on-going presence and activity here and now, even as we live in the hope that Christ will come again; a life-giving paradox.
Here’s to an attentive Advent of hopeful expectation!
Kevin
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