On Advent

We're in the second week of Advent now, and I think it's appropriate to meditate on the meaning of the season. Advent is a season of anticipation and longing, which has meaning for Christians in the past, present, and future.

The whole of the Old Testament, from God's promise of redemption after the fall, to the covenant he established with Abram and his seed, through all the history of the nation of Israel, is the story of the people of God waiting in eager--sometimes bitter--anticipation of the coming of the Messiah and the establishment of the Kingdom of God. The Israelites tasted this anticipation each time they observed the feasts and celebrations of the covenant, and each time the sacrifice of atonement was offered up on their behalf. Even in the glorious days of David and Solomon, when Israel prospered most, still there was an understanding of a greater King to come, a King who would establish his everlasting kingdom. Psalm 45 is a magnificent Christological song of praise that is full of the tension of anticipating the Lord's Anointed One. As we sing the Psalms in praise today, and as we read the other Old Testament passages anticipating the coming of the Kingdom of God, we do so as they are fulfilled in Christ, the King who initiated His Kingdom through His incarnation, death, and resurrection.

Today, we who have been grafted into God's covenant people know this longing, as well. We know that the Old Testament's Messianic prophecies and promises were fulfilled in Christ, and we know that He has already inaugurated His kingdom, which will have no end. We therefore are a people who always look back to Christ's completed work on our behalf, knowing that he has regenerated us through His Spirit and brought us to new life in Him. We also, however, know that we live in a time when the Kingdom has not yet been consummated, when all the world has not yet been brought under the dominion of the King. Because we live in this already-not yet time when two ages overlap, we feel the tension of longing and anticipation of which the advent season is a type. As Charles Biggs put it, "Christians presently experience joy, but we also experience persecution; we experience strength from the Spirit, but also experience weakness; we have the life of Christ within, but unless Christ returns first, we will die and our bodies return to dust; we have confidence of being renewed, but we still suffer. The overlapping of the present age characterized by sin, death, and devil, and the age to come with the dawn of a new creation, a new age, and we as new creations experience the conflict of these two ages as we live by the Spirit each day of our lives."

Advent is the Church's time of celebrating and focusing on the anticipation of the coming King. As the building liturgical tension mounts, the people of God come more and more to focus on the light about to shine "on the people walking in darkness." (Isaiah 9:2) In these few weeks, we get a taste of what it means to live eschatologically--in the end times, in anticipation of the return of the Lord. We hear the admonition: "Be on guard! Be alert! You do not know when [the Lord's return] will come."

Finally, on Christmas, the tension is resolved: "Christ is born today! The King is come! Glory to God in the highest!" The Word has become flesh, and has dwelt among us. The exultation we feel as we look back to the miracle of the Incarnation points us to the day when we, and the whole world, will again say "The King is come!" In the Advent season, and its Christmas fulfillment, it seems that we perhaps have a means of grace that God uses to keep the imminence of Christ's return fresh for us. We have such short attention spans, and we are so apt to get caught up in daily life, that we forget our duty to "Take heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is." (Mark 13:33) Each year, when we come to Advent and remember the anticipation of the Messiah's birth, we are reminded to anticipate an even greater event--the final, consummating, coming of the King.