We are now in the season of Advent, a word that derives from the Latin ad, meaning “to” + venire, meaning “come.” So “Advent” means not only that Jesus comes, but that He comes to us.
Advent is more than the lead up to Christmas. Yes, we wait and prepare for the celebration of the time when the Son of God became incarnate in human flesh. Traditionally, it also had to do with waiting and preparing for the time when, in the words of the Nicene creed, “He will come again with glory to judge both the living and the dead.”
The Scripture readings that the lectionary assigns for Advent include both the Old Testament prophecies about the coming of Christ at Bethlehem and New Testament prophecies about the coming of Christ in the last days.
The ancient Israelites had an abundance of prophecies about the Messiah, but they found them puzzling and hard to interpret, becoming crystal clear after their fulfillment in Jesus. Similarly, we today have many prophecies about the End Times, but we find them puzzling and hard to interpret. Doubtless, they too will become crystal clear once they are fulfilled. In the meantime, Jesus tells us that our job is to “watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is” (Mark 13:33 KJV).
Our pastor, Tyler Arnold, told us that he doesn’t like referring to Jesus’s “Second Coming.” Jesus doesn’t just come twice. He came in the days of Caesar Augustus, to be sure. And He will come “again” to raise the dead, to be our judge, and to create the New Heaven and the New Earth.
But between those times He comes to us also tangibly–in His body and blood–in the sacrament of Holy Communion.
Said Pastor Arnold, “He came, He comes, He will come.”
Shortly before His Ascension, when Jesus returned to the right hand of the Father, He explains that in doing so, He is not leaving us. Rather, He promises, “behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). We also learn that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). He is always present to save. This is true “yesterday,” when He lived and died and rose again, and it is true “today” when He comes to us in Word and Sacrament to create faith in our hearts, and “forever” when He will come to make us part of His eternal kingdom.
Illustration: Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, by Hubert and Jan van Eyck, Ghent Altarpiece, photo by Sailko, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
[Note that all three senses of Christ’s coming are brought together in this painting: Christ’s historical sacrifice on the Cross, His sacramental presence on the altar, and the climax of the End Times as portrayed in the Book of Revelation.]
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