What Kind of “Coming?”

When Advent comes, we say we are preparing for the “coming” of the Lord. But he has already come, right? So, are we just remembering a past event? Or maybe we mean he will be coming back, right? Both of these are true. He has come, and he will indeed be coming back. So then are we remembering a future event? It’s a little like a sandwich. There is the bread on the top and the bread on the bottom, but where’s the “beef?”

The Church really is reminding us of three comings, and the most important is the one in the middle…that’s the beef in the sandwich. It’s easy to remember the three with a little diddy: History, Mystery, and Majesty.

The coming in History is the surprising revelation that comes “…in the fullness of time.” So why is the time “full?” Because God has been playing a kind of “peek-a-boo” down through the ages. Little by little you are ready to see more of me. First, I create you out of pure love and put you in a garden called earth. Then you mess things up by not doing as I ask. This affects not only your relationship with me, but your relationship with one another and your relationship with the earth. You are evicted from the garden. Then, as the centuries roll on, you try to search for me even though your ideas of who I am are pretty cloudy. You keep thinking I’m like yourself. You make me in your own image and likeness. I show you as much as you can bear through the prophets. Then, finally, the fullness of time comes; you are of age. I show you who I really am. I come as human, a language you understand. I enter History, your flow of time and space.

But you make the same mistake all over again. You don’t do as I ask. In fact, you get rid of me so I don’t bother you. But I’m not one to give up easily, so I will come back and try, try again. Yes, I will come back finally in Majesty to claim you, but I will help you get ready to meet me. I will come to you daily in Mystery. Wake up. Don’t miss me. I will come in a hundred different disguises. I am behind every face you see, every hand reached out to you, every person you touch. Don’t pass me by. This time say yes to what I ask of you, OK?

Close as tomorrow the sun shall appear,

Freedom is coming and healing is near.

And I shall be with you in sorrow and pain

to stand in the wind and walk in the reign.

In days to come the desert shall bloom.

Rivers shall run there, and soon, very soon.

So what shall we fear, though death do its worst?

The word of our God is the last shall be first.

Comfort each other, for pain soon must end.

A day comes when lion and lamb shall be friends.

The sightless shall see then, the speechless sing songs.

The name of our God is the righter of wrongs.