This week marks the beginning of Advent, the season in which we contemplate and celebrate the Coming of our God in the form of a humble, poor man who walked alongside the out-castes and taught justice and peace and reconciliation on a mission of mercy to the whole world. The mysterious thing about his coming—like most things that have to do with the Kingdom—is that it has that paradoxical, already-not-yet-ness to it. Sure, the man who was born in a stable has already taken his stand against the Powers and has lived and died and come alive again. “It is finished,” he declared as he overcame the world and set us free.
But it’s also unfinished. Because even as spent his earthly life setting people free, the cosmic Christ whose presence fills the whole universe continues to set women and men free as his Spirit animates others to take their own stand against the Powers today. Jesus continues to love and protest and bless and teach and rescue and re-create this broken world through the hands and feet and voices and minds of his Body. He is mysteriously present in the “least” of our societies around the world, and every child, woman and man bears his image. He is at work in the hearts of those who know him and those who don’t. He is at work in the halls of power and the shacks of poverty. He continues to Come.
And he is yet to come. He has left us with the promise of his return, so even while we joyfully remember his birth into solidarity with humankind, we also wait in desperate anticipation of that Coming which is yet to be. We are impatient: our stomachs are knotted with pain and worry; our eyes are wet with tears. Jesus, come! There is no peace on the earth. Wars are being fought, in conflict zones around the world and in households on our street. Children are abused and wives are beaten. Kids are hungry, and people die of disease in the prime of life. Laws and systems work against the people they were created to help. People feel hopeless enough to end their own lives.
I had always thought of Advent and Christmas as a time of remembering what has already happened. This year, living in a place where there is so much seemingly left untouched by that first Coming, I feel more in touch with that watchful vigil for the not-yet Coming of our King, when love wins once and for all and there really is peace on the earth.
But it’s also unfinished. Because even as spent his earthly life setting people free, the cosmic Christ whose presence fills the whole universe continues to set women and men free as his Spirit animates others to take their own stand against the Powers today. Jesus continues to love and protest and bless and teach and rescue and re-create this broken world through the hands and feet and voices and minds of his Body. He is mysteriously present in the “least” of our societies around the world, and every child, woman and man bears his image. He is at work in the hearts of those who know him and those who don’t. He is at work in the halls of power and the shacks of poverty. He continues to Come.
And he is yet to come. He has left us with the promise of his return, so even while we joyfully remember his birth into solidarity with humankind, we also wait in desperate anticipation of that Coming which is yet to be. We are impatient: our stomachs are knotted with pain and worry; our eyes are wet with tears. Jesus, come! There is no peace on the earth. Wars are being fought, in conflict zones around the world and in households on our street. Children are abused and wives are beaten. Kids are hungry, and people die of disease in the prime of life. Laws and systems work against the people they were created to help. People feel hopeless enough to end their own lives.
I had always thought of Advent and Christmas as a time of remembering what has already happened. This year, living in a place where there is so much seemingly left untouched by that first Coming, I feel more in touch with that watchful vigil for the not-yet Coming of our King, when love wins once and for all and there really is peace on the earth.