Robert Barron - Three Dimensions of Advent
Peace be with you. We come to the first Sunday of Advent, New Year's Day. The new liturgical year commences. And so once again everybody, we get back to basics. We start preparing ourselves for the coming of Christ. Adventus in Latin means just that, arrival or coming. I've said this to you before, I think. But one way to look at Advent is to see three comings of Christ. There's the coming of Christ in history. We go back in time to his arrival in Bethlehem. There's the coming of Christ now as he approaches our hearts, and then there's the coming of Christ someday in the distant future to which we look. So, past, present, future. All three of those dimensions belong to our Advent preparation.
So first of all, let's look back. Here's a very important thing. Please always distinguish Jesus of Nazareth from Hercules, or Achilles, or Osiris, or Paul Bunyan, or any sort of legendary figure. We're not dealing with a legendary figure. There are poetic elements involved in the telling of the Christmas story, sure. But it's not a legend. It's not a myth. We're talking about someone who really came in time and history. More to it, who was seen by his contemporaries as the fulfillment, the culmination of an even older and longer story. So Jesus represents the culmination of Israel, God's rescue operation. God forms the people after his heart, gives them law, Torah, temple, covenant, prophecy.
Who's Jesus, but the one who gathers all those strands together? He's the fulfillment of temple, Torah, covenant, prophecy. That's why he cleanses the temple and declares himself the place where God is rightly worshiped. That's why he goes up the mountain to give the new law, because he's the new Moses. He's the fulfillment of the covenant. He's Torah, prophecy, all of it. So we look back to Jesus, this baby who came into the world in Bethlehem of Judea, and then even further back into the midst of time, into the long history of Israel, and we draw those strands together in him. It's appropriate, and that's part of our advent meditation and preparation, to look back and to wonder at this event, which does represent, listen, the climax of human history. That question to me is very interesting.
Talk to historians and philosophers and they'll notice various moments that are climactic, or that's where history really turns. They'll talk about the Axial age, somewhere around 500 B.C. where in China and India and the Middle East, this great spiritual and intellectual revolution took place. The great religions, philosophy itself emerging in Greece at that time. There was something radioactive about the earth at the Axial age, and many would say that was the turning point of history. That's the fulcrum of history. Probably more common among us is to say the 18th century, with its revolutions and science and politics that created the modern world.
Think about it. The scientific revolution that gave rise to these lights and cameras in front of me right now, that gave rise to all the technology that we take for granted and the political revolutions that gave rise to the political arrangements that we are so accustomed to. Many would say, "No, no, that's the fulcrum of history. That's when it really happened". Then we Christians say, "No, no, not the Axial age, as important as that was. Not the 18th century as decisive as that was. No, no, the fulcrum of history was the coming into the world of this baby, born in Bethlehem of Judea, the son of God having entered history, drawing together all the strands of Israel. He is the fulcrum upon which history turns. He's the focal point of time".
And indeed, isn't it wonderful that even in our very secularist age, we measure time by the coming of this Christ? We're in the 2,024th year since his coming, how appropriate that is. And so, in our Advent meditation, we do indeed look back at his coming in time and how important that was. But now the second dimension, there's also an Adventus that's happening now.
See, because Jesus is not just a figure lost in the mists of history, like Julius Caesar. We'll say, "What an important figure he was". But Caesar, he's long gone. Napoleon, what an important figure. But he's long gone, buried in the Invalides in Paris, but his present relevance is mitigated at best. That's not true of Jesus. That same Christ who came into the world in Bethlehem of Judea, crucified and risen from the dead and now reigning as king, that Jesus, listen now, wants to come into your heart now. His lordship is not some abstraction from the past. It's a present offer.
Think of that great scene from the Book of Revelation, that Jesus knocks at the door. I want you to spend time with that image during Advent. Think of Jesus right now, knocking on the door of your heart, and he wants in. Now, I'll say more about it next week, but he's not going to come barging in the door. He knocks, which means he's inviting a response. Are you willing to make Jesus now the Lord of your life? He's come. He is the climactic moment of history and he's come to meet you, now and he wants to come into your house, to sit down with you, to become your friend, yes, and also the Lord of every aspect of your life. During Advent, we become very aware of that arrival of Christ.
Now, I know what you might say. "I'm not ready for that. I mean, my life's kind of a mess and to let Jesus into my life, I mean, I'm not worthy of it or I'm not ready for it. It's too much". I want you to think about something. Dorothy Day said this. She said, "I'm so grateful that Jesus arrived in this sort of filthy stable 2.000 some years ago". How come? Because she said, "That's what my heart is like. My heart's kind of like a filthy stable. It's not beautiful, not altogether, not well arranged, full of all kinds of stinky things. I mean, that's my heart".
Well, Jesus deigned to come into that stable long ago, and he wants access to the stable of our hearts now. So everybody, during Advent meditate on that perhaps as, look, I know I'm unworthy. I know maybe I've wandered away from Christ and from the church and from the sacraments, and I'm not worthy. Forget about that. Right now during Advent, he's knocking at the door of your heart, right now. And now, maybe there are people listening to me who have wandered a long way from the Lord. They have wandered far away from the church. Open the door to him. You're not ready, none of us is ready, but he's knocking. Open the door, he's coming. Adventus, he's arriving now. Let him in, to be the Lord of your life.
So, we look back into history and we see Jesus as the culmination of time and history. We look around us and we see him coming now into our lives. The third one, and I want to draw your attention here to the gospel for today. We look to the distant future or maybe not so distant, who knows? But we look to the future coming of Christ. He talks about these apocalyptic signs that will happen, that people will die of fright in anticipation of what's coming upon the world. But when these signs begin to happen, he says, "Stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand". But then this, "Be vigilant at all times and pray that you have the strength to stand before the son of man". It's an aspect of Christian doctrine, I think we overlook a lot. The second coming of Jesus.
So, he came in time and now he's offering himself to us in the present. But the great faith of the church is that he will come again at the end of time. Mind you, for Christians, time is not just a cycle, not just an endless return of the same. Nietzsche said that, "The eternal return of the same". Not just one darn thing after another. No, history is marching toward its fulfillment. It's a story unfolding. Think of all the great Christian literary artists. They're all assuming this idea, that life is like a story. Not just a potpourri of unconnected events, but a narrative that's unfolding.
Where's it moving toward? What's the climax of the story? The second coming of Jesus, when he comes definitively to draw all the strands together. He comes definitively to show that all of space and time are like the separate leaves of a book, that's Dante's image, now gathered together as a coherent narrative. I want you to watch for something, especially during Advent, but actually year-round, how often the liturgy orients us toward this second coming. So, we wait in joyful hope for the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ. Open up your Bibles, look at the last lines of the last pages of the Book of Revelation. What do you see? "Maranatha come, Lord Jesus".
The last line of the Bible, the Bible which has explored the history of Israel, has recounted the coming of the Messiah, all of that. But the last line of the Bible is, "Looking for the day when the Lord will come again". Now see, why is this important during Advent that we also look forward? Because it convinces us that our lives have meaning and purpose. They're not just disconnected events, but they're meant to unfold in a coherent way in the direction of Jesus.
See, as he is going to come to bring history to a conclusion, we even now look to his coming and order our lives in that direction. It's not bad news, the second coming of Jesus, don't read it that way. It's the good news, that God from the beginning has had a purpose for everything. Our lives, uh-huh, but the entire sweep of history is moving in a particular direction, and it will come to its meaningful fulfillment in Christ. See, Dante's great work is called the Commedia, in his Italian, the comedy. And we think, "Oh, that means it's full of laughs".
Well, it isn't. Commedia, meaning a story with a happy ending. The great truth of the second coming of Jesus is that the story of humanity, indeed, the story of the cosmos, has a happy ending. It's drawn together in and through Christ. Okay, so as we begin Advent everybody, look back, he came. He's not a myth, not a legend. He came in time. He's the climactic moment of history. He's coming even now. He wants access to your heart now, and he will come again at the end of time to bring this whole great comedy to its fulfillment. And God bless you.