Is God Coming? An Advent Poem

Is God coming? God is here!
Can’t you see him all around you?

From the first light of creation,
To the moment that he found you.

We’re not abandoned or left comfortless.
But Scripture reveals a pattern that we’ve missed.
His comings aren’t limited two, the bridegroom hasn’t been “delayed”.
Comings run through Scripture like a thread, our perception needs to be remade.

Not all comings were in his body, to be seen and touched and heard,
He was in the Burning Bush and Firey Furnace, as much as at his Birth.
He was the “rock” that Moses struck, yes his “goings forth have been from of old,”
Many even see him in the Angel of the Lord.

A resurrected Jesus came to disciples in the Upper Room,
He met the couple on Emmaus and turned them from their gloom.
Then he left so he could empower us and send,
His Spirit down at Pentecost to fill us from within.

But the comings kept on coming. And then He came again.

He appeared to Stephen, looking down from the Father’s side,
He came to Paul on Damascus road – so swift it made him blind.
He spoke the law out of Peter and said God’s people would eat freely.
He came to John on Patmos Isle saying – ten times! – a coming “SOON” he’d see.

And the Glorious Coming of the Lord?
Happened – just as sure as Jesus gave his word.
At the Consummation of the Ages, and in his Father’s style,
He completed our atonement and ‘came again’ a priestly ‘second time’.

The Temple fell, the harvest was reaped. God’s people birthed anew.
The germinated seed sprung forth, and shed its shell of doom.
With law fulfilled and passed away, One new humanity from two,
The breath of life restored at last! Hades and death are through.

We are Kingdom of eternal light, where there’s no more dividing ‘sea’.
We are ‘new heaven and new earth’, from deathly curse now free.
New creation – are we not? The night of Old Covenant chased away,
The Sun of Righteousness shines forth in us – a New eternal Day.

Is God coming? Yes continually – Maranatha! – can’t you see?
What need is there to see a body that would end our history?
How fine a thing to trust he came, making us complete,
So now, “Behold, the presence of our God lives with humanity!”