1st Sunday of Advent

          When we experience something truly beautiful in life, for instance when we see a beautiful sunset or a painting or when we hear a piece of music, this can sometimes cause in us a deep emotional reaction.  It can even produce tears.  I once heard this reaction explained as the “pain of separation.”  In other words, when we encounter something beautiful on earth, it is a “little slice of heaven,” and it brings great joy.  But at the same time we know that we’re only getting that little sliver; we know that there’s more.   We know somehow that the goodness, the beauty that we are experiencing is not yet experienced in all its fullness.  And so there is a kind of sadness as we long for but our temporarily separated from the ultimate good.  The Catholic poet Anne Porter described it this way in her poem, “Music”:

When I was a child

I once sat sobbing on the floor

Beside my mother’s piano

As she played and sang

For there was in her singing

A shy yet solemn glory

My smallness could not hold

And when I was asked

Why I was crying

I had no words for it

I only shook my head

And went on crying

Why is it that music

At its most beautiful

Opens a wound in us

An ache a desolation

Deep as a homesickness

For some far-off

And half-forgotten country

I’ve never understood

Why this is so

But there’s an ancient legend

From the other side of the world

That gives away the secret

Of this mysterious sorrow

For centuries on centuries

We have been wandering

But we were made for Paradise

As deer for the forest

And when music comes to us

With its heavenly beauty

It brings desolation

For when we hear it

We half remember

That lost native country

We dimly remember the fields

Their fragrant windswept clover

The birdsongs in the orchards

The wild white violets in the moss

By the transparent streams

And shining at the heart of it

Is the longed-for beauty

Of the One who waits for us

Who will always wait for us

In those radiant meadows

Yet also came to live with us

And wanders where we wander.

I felt a little bit of this just the other night during our Lessons and Carols, here in the chapel.  It is the feeling of the “already, but not yet,” and I think that it is a feel that describes the Advent season very well.  Even the word “Advent” suggests this tension.  After all, “advent” means “coming,” and yet this is a season of “waiting” and preparation for what is yet to come.  The readings for this first Sunday of Advent also reflect this tension between the “already” and “not yet.” 

In the first reading, from the prophet Isaiah, we heard these words addressed to God, “Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down.”  Clearly here there is a deep sense of longing for God.  Of course, we know and believe as Christians that what Isaiah longed for has happened.  God did “rend the heavens” and come down, taking flesh in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  God became one of us, taking on the fullness of our humanity, without losing anything of His divinity.  This is what we celebrate at Christmas time, namely (as we profess each Sunday in the Creed) that “he came down from heaven, and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man.”  This is the mystery of the Incarnation. 

          And so, if this has already come to pass, what are we still waiting and preparing for?  Our tradition speaks of the three comings of Christ.  First, of course, there is His coming in time, that “in-breaking” into human history that is the mystery of the Incarnation just described.   Then, of course, there is Our Lord’s coming at the end of time, when He will return in His glory.  With Christians down through the centuries, we long for this coming, and cry out, “Maranatha! Come Lord Jesus!”  In a new way we take up the words of Isaiah, “Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down.”  But there is a third coming of Christ that occurs between the first and the last.  This is the coming of Christ daily into our lives.  In truth, He never left us, as He Himself said in His last words to us before His Ascension into heaven: “Behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).  And so, Christ continues to come to us.  We experience this is in a profound way in the Eucharist.  Christ comes to us in this celebration.  He comes to us in word and Sacrament, especially in the Eucharistic species, under the humble appearance of bread and wine.

          But He does not limit Himself to coming in this way, privileged though it is.  Christ also comes to us throughout the course of each day in a variety of ways.  Just as His coming in the Eucharist is hidden, veiled but nonetheless real, so too does He come to us in a variety of “disguises” – maybe in a person, or in a particular situation that we face.  This is that “middle” coming of Christ that happens between His first coming two thousand years ago and His coming at the end of the age.  So that we might be attentive to these multiple comings of Christ, Christ Himself says to us in the Gospel today: “Be watchful! Be Alert!  You do not know when the time will come…Watch!”  This is our Advent duty.  Indeed, this is our lifelong duty as Christians, to watch for the coming of Our Lord.  And, as St. Paul tells us in our second reading, we are “not lacking in any spiritual gift” as we “wait for the revelation of Our Lord Jesus Christ.” 

Yes, we must certainly prepare for our celebration of Christ’s first coming at Christmas (and this holy season helps to do that, if we let it), but we must also prepare for His coming again when our earthly lives our over or when He returns to fulfill all things.  And the best way to prepare for both of these comings of Christ is to be attentive to Him as He is made known to us here and now.

We think of this season as a time of giving, but really the charity we strive to exhibit in this season should mark our entire lives.  In this way, we live out that beautiful tension of the “already, but not yet” of our faith.  Christ has already come; He comes to us still; and He will come again.  And so, let us live in true love and communion with each other and with the “least” of our brothers and sisters, not only in this Advent season, but always.