Happy Advent! Today is the First Sunday of Advent, the first Sunday in the new church year. The word advent means coming. During the season of Advent we prepare for the coming of The One. Who is The One? Is it Santa Claus? No. That’s a different kind of advent. Santa Claus is coming to town, but that is not the advent we are talking about. The One we are preparing for is Jesus, the Christ.
There are actually three advents that we prepare for during this season of Advent. The first Advent is the one where we put most of our energy, the Advent of Christ coming over two thousand years ago, born as a baby and placed in a manger in Bethlehem. This is, of course, the celebration of Christmas. It is important to do that preparation. It is meet and right to do that work. But it is going to get a lot of our energy, so we are not going to talk about this advent right now.
The second Advent is the Second Coming, the advent of Christ coming at the end of time, the eschatological Advent. It is the time when Christ will come again, and it is the main theme of today. We see it in our Collect, where it says “in the last day”, and we see it in our readings in Jeremiah that says “The days are surely coming”, and the Thessalonian reading that says “the coming of our Lord Jesus”, and Jesus saying “the Son of Man coming in a cloud.” This is all code language for the Second Coming, the Second Advent, the Apocalyptic Advent. It is not a major theme in Scripture, although some Christians like to sound like it is. But it is there. We are preparing for that end in this season of Advent, although it is a hard thing to wrap our minds around. It is important to spend some time during Advent preparing for that end, a “Lo, he comes with clouds descending” kind of moment. Jesus does talk about it. We heard it in today’s Gospel, and we heard it two weeks ago when he was talking about it as well.
The third Advent we prepare for is Christ coming into our lives today. The first Advent looks to the past, the second looks to the future, and the third Advent looks to this moment, this present moment that we find ourselves in. Christ is not just born in a manger two thousand years ago, Christ is born into our heart each and every day. That is an important Advent for us to spend some time focusing on during this season.
Today’s readings are pointing us to the second Advent, but I think this Gospel reading is a bit of a tricky one. I actually think Jesus is pointing us to the third Advent in this Gospel reading. There is a line that strikes me every time I hear this Gospel reading in which Jesus says all of this will take place before this generation has passed. Which means if we are going to take Scripture seriously, if we are going to take Jesus seriously, all of this stuff he is talking about—Christ coming back to the people—took place before they died. So if that is the case perhaps it is not just the end time Advent that Jesus is talking about. Maybe he is talking about the advent of Jesus coming to us now, to that generation, and to every generation.
Notice in the reading that Jesus also talks about all kinds of darkness, typical in apocalyptic literature: the earth in distress among the nations, wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes and all kinds of terrible things that happen. I think what Jesus is telling us in this Gospel is that in the darkness of our lives, all the problems that we face, which are legion, Christ comes to us in the midst of it. Christ is that light that shines in the darkness. I know we have a lot of darkness in our lives right now. Personally, many of us are facing all kinds of difficulties: cancers, heart problems, dementia and other medical ailments. People with fraying relationships, people having difficulty at work or struggling in their jobs. We have all kinds of personal challenges. There are also all kinds of challenges as a nation, division and crisis. We have challenges around the world. Wars are raging in so many places. There are wars and rumors of wars, as Jesus puts it. There is so much darkness, and yet that is the very moment that Christ is coming into our lives to shine the light. I know it is a bit cliché, but there is an old expression that says the stars are always brightest when it is the darkest. Christ is always brightest when it is darkest. Christ comes to us in the darkness. Or maybe to put it another way, Christ is always there, but we notice him when it is darkest.
I encourage you during this Advent season to take some time to prepare for all of these Advents. The Advent of Christ who came, Christ who will come, and the Christ who is coming among us now.
When you walked in today you might have noticed a few different things around here. There is a little village set up in the back of the Chapel. Did you notice that Jesus is there? He is there in the village among the people living their lives. That is an image of Christ coming. In the narthex there is a new case full of nativity scenes from around the world. One thing you will notice in all of them is that none of them look like what Jesus actually looked like. Perhaps it is a little too Italian, or a little too Medieval. There are nativity scenes from South America, from Africa, from Asia and Europe, and Jesus did not look like any of that. I have to say that this used to bother me. I wanted to find the perfect 1st century nativity scene, but I think I was missing the point when I was bothered by that. The nativity scenes from around the world, with all kinds of cultural expressions of what Jesus looked like, is the third Advent. We don’t see the first one, we see the third one. Yes, Jesus came at a particular time and place to particular people, but Jesus also came and is coming and is here with us now at this time, in this place, with this people.
So, my friends, focus on the presence of Christ in your life. Prepare for Christmas, wrap your presents, get your houses ready. I know it is hard, but also spend a little time thinking about the future. Prepare your heart as much as you prepare your hearth to welcome Jesus into your life today.
AMEN.
