During Advent we anticipate the coming of Christ. At first this may sound strange because one might ask, “are we not remembering his coming, the fact that Jesus was born in Bethlehem long ago?” Another may answer that what we are anticipating is his second coming while we are celebrating his birth 2000 years ago. However, Advent is not really about thinking of one past coming, or a future coming, which may be far off, but welcoming the continual coming of Christ.
The question is not when is Jesus coming, but more how his coming is occurring and how we should seek it. This time of Advent encourages us to wait and be watchful, ready not for some possibly far off event which will be the conclusion of everything, but how in a faithful manner to be always looking for the One who is forever coming. We live in expectation of a continual arriving, moment by moment, daily, and in everything.
Jesus has revealed God to be One who is coming to us, who is always moving toward us, for our good, as if we are lost sheep. Jesus proclaimed, provoking the ridicule of the religious leaders, that Abraham saw his day and was glad (John 8:56). What did he mean except that God’s coming to Abraham, which happened in numerous ways, was his coming. Paul writes that the rock from which Israel drank was Christ (1 Corinthians 10:4). In fact, every time when we can point to God’s merciful and loving work, point to it because we recognize it, this too is the coming of Christ, for the Son is One with the Father.
I do not need a single coming of the Lord, but a gracious in-breaking within my every concern, undertaking, and struggle. The Advent of our Lord teaches us that God did not become our Emmanuel on the night that Mary gave birth to a son, but that God has always been with his people even if his people did not always perceive that to be the case. After all, God was identified as Emmanuel first by Isaiah to King Ahaz, 700 years before Jesus was born (Isaiah 7:10-16).
Everything eternally true about God has been made ever more clear in Jesus the Christ. The love and mercy of the Almighty, the grace of the Father, the suffering of God in order to rescue and heal us, and the coming of the Lord, just to name a few, are and will forever be true about God. None of these are rare events but constant realities of the benevolent stooping low of the Divine to draw us into eternal life.
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