IS 26:1-6
PS 118:1 AND 8-9, 19-21, 25-27A
MT 7:21, 24-27
"Advent" derives from the Latin word adventus --"coming" -- which was used to translate the Greek word parousia - the word used in the New Testament to refer to Jesus' Second Coming. I tend to think each Advent of celebrating the coming of Jesus in the historical past and in a renewed way each Christmas more than I think about Jesus' ultimate return at the end of history.
Certainly we imagine the full realization of the coming of the kingdom of God as yet to be attained, but just as certainly we recognize the presence of Jesus in our midst here and now. As the Scripture scholars put it, "already, but not yet." But focusing on waiting for Jesus can give Advent a decidedly passive character - like we are taking these four weeks just waiting for Jesus to show up (and hope he does not notice how much Candy Crush we are playing on our phones while we wait):
But we are not just waiting for something to happen to us, we hope for something happening within and among us, which I think means that we have a part to play. As the gospel for the day put it,
"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,'
will enter the Kingdom of heaven,but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. (MT 7:21)
The kingdom of God is at hand, says Jesus again and again - it is coming, but we have a part to play in it getting here and it won't get here without us. "May thy kingdom come" means, in large part, "may thy will be done on earth." The kingdom is not where we go when we die, it is what is happening here and now, never fully or once and for all, but in the building the world of which God dreams - that the blind see and the prisoners be set free and the poor hear and experience good news for a change - and on and on and on.
Imagining that better world is easy, particularly given how much destructiveness is clearly visible around us. Getting there is of course harder, but I think we know it won't happen just by us waiting for it. (Granted, it won't happen if we just try really hard either - the world of which God dreams is BEYOND us, but it is not WITHOUT us.) How do we as individuals and as a university community participate in overcoming all of the forces in our world that oppose human flourishing?
Jesus does not truly come into our world on December 25 if we do not make him tangible and make his words have impact on every other day of the year. In Advent we anticipate what is coming not by waiting for it to show up out of nowhere but by dreaming of it and yearning for it and working to make it a reality.
Patrick Cousins works in the Department of Campus Ministry.
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