THE THREE ADVENTS

Reflections on the First Sunday of Advent (Jeremiah 33:14-1, 1 Thessalonians 3:12-4:2, Luke 21:25-28,34-36)

Advent (from the Latin word adventus meaning ‘arrival’ or ‘coming’) is here to announce a new liturgical year and a four-week season of preparation to welcome the Saviour. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153), a French theologian and Cistercian abbot, spoke of not just one but three advents (Sermo 5, In Adventu Domini, 1-3).

The First Advent/ The First Coming marks God’s entry into human history as a child “in our flesh and in our weakness”. This is the mystery of God becoming man, the Word becoming flesh and dwelling among us. In his first advent, the eternal, infinite, and invisible Lord entered our temporal, finite, and visible world. God becomes palpable, embraces the created world with both its beauty and its ambiguities, translates the divine Word of God into human language, and abandons himself to the anonymity of Nazareth, the demands of his public ministry, and the divine plan of his crucifixion, death, resurrection, and ascension. This mystery of incarnation is what we celebrate on Christmas year after year. The first coming of the Lord was the fulfilment of the Ancient Testament prophecies, a sample of which we find in the first reading, where Jeremiah proclaims, “I will raise up for David a just shoot; he shall do what is right and just in the land”. The first advent is thus the fulfilment of God’s promise to his people, the culmination of the hopeful wait of an oppressed community for the coming of their messiah to establish peace and justice.

The Third Advent/ The Second Coming points to the end times when the Lord “appears in his glory and in his majesty” among the clouds of heaven. Also known as the final coming, this advent proclaims the return of the Lord to draw the redeemed of all ages to himself and mark the end of history. In stark contrast to the anonymous yet historic first advent, the third advent is characterised by imposing and terrifying signs that would be hard to miss or ignore. It would be accompanied by catastrophes, that are both natural (earthquakes, famines, epidemics, etc.,) and human-made (wars, conflicts, etc.,). Luke, in today’s Gospel, highlights a few: signs in the Sun, the moon, and the stars; perplexed nations in dismay; roaring waves of the sea; people dying of fright; powers of the heavens shaken. The biblical and theological language used to describe this advent is technically called apocalyptic language. Contrary to popular opinion, apocalypse does not necessarily mean destruction. Its Greek origin (apokalupsis) means revelation. The terror and gloom of the apocalyptic language are actually revelations about the regeneration of a new and better world.

The Second Advent/The Middle Coming: Between the memory of the first coming in Bethlehem and the promise of the third advent, lies the reality of the middle coming. Bernard calls this advent a path that leads from the first to the third. The Lord comes here “in spirit and truth” knocking at the door of our hearts waiting to enter when invited (Revelations 3:20). This advent opens our hearts to the grace of God mediated by conversion and repentance, enabling us to grow in love. The Gospel and the second reading outline the attitudes that this advent demands from us: being vigilant at all times, praying for strength, not giving in to drowsiness, carousing, drunkenness, and the anxieties of daily life, abounding in love, conducting ourselves worthily, and more importantly “standing erect and raising our heads” when tribulations trouble us “because the redemption is at hand”. To help us respond to these high expectations, God strengthens us through His word (“Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them” John 14:23), the sacraments of the Church, and the liturgy.

This season of advent invites us to enter into the mystery of these three comings. Advent is a time to commemorate the memory of the first coming of God’s only Son into our flesh and our history to reveal to the Face of God. It is also a time to prepare ourselves for the daily arrival of Christ in our daily life realities, welcoming his love and grace in spirit and truth into our hearts. And finally, advent is also a time to focus our attention on the future accomplishment of the final coming of Christ at the end of time, which promises to be not just a time of catastrophes but the fulfilment of our history and the definitive victory of love over hatred, life over death, and light over darkness.