1st Sunday of Advent 2024
Jeremiah 33:14-16; 1 Thessalonians 3:12-4:2; Luke 21:25-28, 34-36
Pope St. John Paul II was fond of reminding us that we are the Easter People: an important concept because we live always in the light of the Risen Christ. At the same time, we are the Lenten People, journeying through the wilderness with God’s Chosen People, and with Jesus, who faced and overcame the temptations which afflict all of us in our different ways.
We are also the Pentecost People, called into life by the Holy Spirit, who has been and is poured out upon us. And we are the Advent People, to whom and in whom Christ is always coming: Christ who came, veiled in flesh; Christ who will come, throned in glory; Christ who does come, quietly, secretly, unnoticed, to those who have eyes to see, ears to hear.
What are we doing, when we keep the season of Advent? We are waiting, preparing, being alert. Waiting, preparing, being alert for what? For whom? For the coming of Christ, yes, but how, when, where? The thoughtless will answer “at Christmas”, but what does that mean?
Christ CAME at the first Christmas, of course, to be the Messiah, the righteous branch promised by Jeremiah; and we do indeed prepare to recall, to celebrate, that First Coming: the advent of God in our human flesh, the breaking through of eternity into time, of the divine into the human. This indeed was awesome, earth-shattering, world-changing, deserving to be recalled and celebrated year after year after year, as long as time lasts.
But can we actually say, as is sometimes said, that we are preparing “for the coming of Christ at Christmas”? In what way will Christ come at Christmas differently from the way that He comes every other day of the year, every day of our lives? His coming is always fresh, always new, always incomprehensible, and on Christmas Day He will come in word and sacrament, in the gathering of His people, in the events which unfold for us—AS HE COMES EVERY DAY.
Rightly, we prepare to recall that God-filled event, and to pray that Christ may be born in us anew, but Advent, if it is to be true to itself, must be more than that. What more must it be?
As well as a making present again of a past event, it must be a longing for, and an openness to, the future. Our Gospel today calls us to be alert to the coming of Christ, but not as a baby in a manger. Its whole emphasis is on the return of Christ in glory, and on our need to be prepared and awake to face that; indeed, to welcome it as our redemption, for it will mark the fulfilment of God’s purpose for the world.
Will that Second or Final Coming of Christ happen in our lifetime? When we hear the Lord’s account of the signs which will accompany it, we may think that it is just around the corner. Are there not plenty of signs in these days? Natural disasters, conflicts without end, breakdowns of civilisation? Aren’t there many nations in distress and perplexity, so many of them grasping at extreme and extremist political solutions?
We do not, and cannot, know if these are signs of an imminent end. We can and should see them as reminders that there will be an end, for us as individuals and for the world. We should take them as pointers to our own mortality, recalling that we were created, not for this life only, but for eternity, an eternity which is being built in our living out of every day.
So in Advent we are preparing to recall the beginning of the work of our redemption in the First Coming of Christ, and we are sharpening our alertness to the prospect of His Second Coming, both at the end of our own lives and at the end of time. Is there anything else?
Certainly there is, for as St. Bernard, father of the Cistercian renaissance, reminded us, there is a Third Coming of Christ, between the other two, and one which affects us every day. For Christ is always coming into our lives, day by day, moment by moment. He comes, not only in the specifically religious events, but in the people who cross our path, each of them Christ for us; in the painful and joyful events, which give us a share in His Cross and Resurrection; in all that we do or fail to do; in all the gifts and opportunities of His grace. The Advent season reminds us of something which is true day in and day out: Christ is coming to us, here and now, today. Are we awake to recognise Him?
