Feature, not a Bug

 Part of the reason I love Advent so much is because of how much I love Christmas. Advent gives us a chance to reflect more deeply on the Messianic promises of the Scriptures, preparing our hearts for the feast of the Nativity. Christ's first Advent justly remains a central focus for the season, allowing us to be drawn into the lives of the Israelites awaiting the coming of a Savior. But this season is not only about remembering the distant past. Advent's present tense draws Christ's people into the patterns of habits that accompany awaiting his return.

Jesus taught about his second Advent, especially as he prepared for the passion during his ministry in Jerusalem. One day, some of his disciples admired the grandeur of Jerusalem's Second Temple. Jesus, never one to miss a segue, used that moment to begin an eschatological discourse. As he described the bleakness of the days ahead, with their attendant wars, rumors of wars, earthquakes, and so on, I wonder if Jesus' disciples would have nodded along without much surprise. After all, those things were sadly common to human experience then just as they are now. But when Jesus moves into the destruction of Jerusalem, he definitely got his disciples' attention again. The fate of Jerusalem and the Temple were often a subject of the prophets' preaching, calling the Israelites to repent of their unfaithfulness to the Covenant. Jesus' teaching in Luke 21 places him squarely in this prophetic tradition. And as he foretold the Temple's eventual destruction, you can feel the disciples' anxiety rise. The idea of the Second Temple's destruction must have seemed mind-bogglingly horrible, as the destruction of Solomon's first Temple was absolutely present among Jesus' friends, family, and neighbors some 400 years on. But the culmination of Jesus' eschatological discourse in Luke 21 is not bleak violence or the desecration of sacred space. Rather, Jesus tells his disciples that he will return to be with them by evoking Daniel's vision of the Son of Man arriving to inaugurate the fulness of God's Kingdom. 

For many of us, the second coming of Jesus seems kind of scary. To be honest, I think that's a feature not a bug. It's not that Jesus isn't a kind and loving savior, or that he isn't a wonderful counselor or the prince of peace. It's just that as such he is also the Righteous, Everlasting, and Mighty God. The thing about divine righteousness personified is that unrighteousness quakes before it. But Jesus shows us that his righteous way, the way of self sacrificial holiness, the way of his eternal love, gives us a way to access his full presence such that we would be found ready at his return to receive him again and join him in the life of the world to come where "Death will be no more; grief, crying, and pain will be no more, because the previous things have passed away." The season of Advent reminds us that Christian holiness, Christian love, and all we do from altar to job to home is caught up in this kind of time. That's why Advent is a great opportunity to reclaim our time as the Lord's and incorporate intentional spiritual practice so as to respond as Jesus' commanded. Thus I hope we will be ready in prayer and in works of mercy. I hope will be found ready in worship and fellowship with our families in Christ. We should be ready in expectation that what Jesus says is true and that he will come quickly as a thief in the night to finally bring heaven and earth together, when 

"Every valley shall be lifted up,

    and every mountain and hill be made low;

the uneven ground shall become level,

    and the rough places a plain.

 And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,

    and all flesh shall see it together,

    for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” (Isaiah 40:4-5)

Come and be among us, Lord Jesus!

The Rev. David Bumsted

Rector

Saint John’s Episcopal Church