For this First Sunday of Advent, our "epistle" reading is a longer section of the thirteenth chapter of Saint Paul's Letter to the Romans than the reading found in Morning Prayer for the Liturgy of the Hours. Despite being a relatively short liturgical season, Advent has two fairly distinct phases. For the first two weeks, Advent is a continuation of the end of the liturgical year. As such, it focuses on Christ's return at the end of time and preparing for His return.
Advent, therefore, begins penitentially. Oddly, there are those who deny that Advent has a penitential character at all. This is belied by the fact that the predominant liturgical color for this season is violet. Liturgically, violent indicates penance. Besides, for most Eastern Christians the pre-Christmas fast is as rigorous or nearly as rigorous as the Lenten fast. Sadly, Latin Christians have largely dispensed with pre-Christmas penitential practices.
As noted a few weeks ago, there is something seriously defective about a "Christianity" that has lost its eschatological edge. In fact, such a "Christianity" is a pseudo-Christianity. Far from honoring, Jesus Christ, rending being a Christian as nothing more than choosing one existential option among innumerable existential options is to ignore what He taught. Our Gospel for today is one such teaching. Christianity isn't just one more moral code or even a moral code at all.
Faced with these eschatological passages, we have a tendency to water them down. Otherwise, we might get a bit uncomfortable. This discomfort might cause someone to examine his life. And, who knows, perhaps even repent.
Fundamentally, the message for the First Sunday of Advent is that being a Christian means living intentionally. The intent in living this way isn't to live this way when that just means adhering to a set of rules and regulations in order to receive a reward. It means living this way in order to be changed from the inside out. It means metanoia. It means desiring to be conformed to the image of Christ, wanting to be holy as He is holy.
"Maranatha" in the medieval Southwick Codex
In turn, desiring to be conformed to the image of Christ means recognizing that you cannot accomplish this transformation on your own. Without grace, you cannot be like Christ. Human beings were created in the image and likeness of God. While God's image, the imago Dei, is ineradicable, likeness to God is lost through sin and can only be restored by grace.
We are creatures who inhabit time. Time will end. Therefore, each day salvation draws nearer- whether that be the eschaton or your own death. This year is the 1,700th anniversary of the Nicene-Constaninopolitan Creed. In that Creed, which we recite virtually every Sunday (we can use the Apostles Creed, but that in no way diminishes my point), we profess that Jesus Christ "will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead." This is a dogma of Christian faith. Therefore, it is de fide. Without it, one's faith becomes belief in something else.
It has been more than 2,000 years since the Lord's first advent. In human terms, this is a very long time. It is postulated that Israel's exodus from Egypt took place around 1446 BC. If one backs up from the exodus to Israel's "going down to Egypt," you get pretty close to 2,000 years. Please do not misunderstand me. I am not predicting that Jesus is coming soon. Yet, He might. Nobody can possibly know. The signs the Lord invokes, I believe, are deliberately ambiguous.
Rather, my point is that most of history is an advent, a time of waiting on God. Many have concluded that waiting on God is like waiting for Godot, that is, waiting for someone who never turns up. But that isn't true. Christ has turned up.
Through the Holy Spirit, who is Christ's resurrection presence, He remains present, especially and profoundly in and through His Body, the Church. This is why the response to the Intercessions for Evening Prayer for the First Sunday of Advent is Come and stay with us, Lord.Hence, we live between the already and the not yet. This is a place of tension.
Today, as we enter (another) Advent, we are urged to live this tension. We are exhorted not let either or both sides go slack. We are encouraged not give up our joyful waiting for the coming of our Lord. This is why we pray- מרנאתא - Transliterated, this is Maranatha!
Maranatha is an Aramaic word. Hence, it belongs to what was Jesus' native language. Found in 1 Corinthians 16:22 and alluded to in Revelation 22:20, Maranatha is translated in various ways: "Our Lord, come!" but it could also be credibly translated "Our Lord has come." Fittingly, there is no need to resolve this ambiguity, this tension, just as there is no need to resolve the tension of the already and the not-yet. Between these two is now.
Wake up! Stay awake! Be salt. Don't lose your savor. Await Christ with joyful expectation, which means seeking to make God's kingdom present here and now.
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