During Advent we are often invited to prepare for the three comings of Christ. Two of the comings are very easily detected in the liturgical texts of this season. Many texts invite us to reenact the long journey of the chosen people as they waited for the coming of the one who would save them. How often we have savoured the beautiful prophecies the Church proposes for us, especially those from Isaiah. They point to the Saviour’s coming in majesty and to God’s decisive intervention to set things right. As we look forward to this final coming we are in solidarity with our Jewish brothers and sisters.
But for Christians these texts, and other texts from the New Testament, allude to two comings. The first coming is uppermost in the minds and hearts of most of the faithful. It is reflected in the hymns, images and symbols that surround us at this time, such as the Christmas crib. For us two thousand years ago God has already come, not in majesty but in poverty, to be our Saviour, in the person of His Son, Emmanuel, God-with-us. This humble entry of God made flesh among us was the beginning of God’s decisive intervention on our behalf.
As we move further into the season of Advent more emphasis is given to this first coming, to the stories of immediate preparation for the birth of Jesus, especially those found in Luke’s gospel. The tone is warm, intimate, familial. And as Christians we believe that when we contemplate any scene of Christ’s earthly life, what happens is not simply an empty memorial. Jesus is really there to meet us and to grace us in our prayer. So the birth of Christ in Bethlehem is not a hazy event of the past which we try to clothe with vividness in our imagination: in a mystical but real way the event happens all over again for us, we relive it, and share in its graces.
The chosen people expected the end of the world, God’s decisive intervention on humanity’s behalf, the triumphant coming of the Messiah. As Christians we have the same expectation and understand the texts the same way, but for us this coming is a second coming. Our Jewish brothers and sisters do not acknowledge the first coming in poverty and humility, but together we look for this final coming of God in majesty and power, where the reign of God inaugurated in the first coming is definitively established and we are ushered into the new heaven and the new earth.
This second coming is highlighted in the first weeks of Advent, which reflect the end of the world emphasis of the last weeks of Ordinary Time.
We are delighted to re-enact the first coming each year, with the beautiful graces the Lord has in store for us. However, we look forward to the second coming, in which the vulnerable and humble love shown by Jesus during his first coming is revealed to be what it really is: a glorious manifestation of God’s real power, a power which does not oppress and dominate us, but sets us free and enables us to be our real selves. It is then that the seeds of new life deeply planted in us when Christ is born in our hearts will fully transform our fragile and weak selves and our topsy turvy world.
In brief our life is shaped by the already now of the first coming and the not yet of the second coming. We live in hope, and that is the key virtue pointed out to us during this holy season of Advent. These words of the first Advent preface say it all: “When he humbled himself to come among us as a human being, he fulfilled the plan you formed long ago and opened for us the way to salvation. Now we watch for the day, hoping that the salvation promised us will be ours when Christ our Lord will come again in his glory.”
However in the title of this posting we refer to the three comings of Christ. What coming have we missed? The text of St. Bernard in the office of readings during the first week of Advent will help us:
We know that there are three comings of the Lord. The third lies between the other two. It is invisible, while the other two are visible. In the first coming he was seen on earth, dwelling among human beings; he himself testifies that they saw him and many hated him. In the final coming all flesh will see the salvation of our God, and they will look on him whom they pierced. The intermediate coming is a hidden one; in it only those on the path to God see the Lord within their own selves, and they experience salvation. In his first coming our Lord came in our flesh and in our weakness; in this middle coming he comes in spirit and in power; in the final coming he will be seen in glory and majesty.
From this text we see that this coming is found between the first and the second. It is invisible. Indeed it is a series of comings within our inmost hearts in the course of our earthly lives. Jesus comes to us with his challenges and his empowerment, his invitations and his consolation. His comings are subtle, and we can easily miss them. We need to be ever alert, because we do not know the time nor the hour of our visitation. Let us continue with Bernard:
In case someone should think that what we say about this middle coming is sheer invention, listen to what our Lord himself says: If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him… Where is God’s word to be kept? Obviously in the heart, as the prophet says: I have hidden your words in my heart, so that I may not sin against you. Keep God’s word in this way. Let it enter into your very being, let it take possession of your desires and your whole way of life…Your soul will delight in its richness… Because this coming lies between the other two, it is like a road on which we travel from the first coming to the last. In the first, Christ was our redemption; in the last, he will appear as our life; in this middle coming, he is our rest and consolation.
This intermediate coming is really a series of many comings in the course of our daily lives. They prepare us for the final coming of Christ who will take possession of all and glorify all. We are like the virgins who wait for the Master’s coming with their lamps trimmed, not knowing the hour.
So Advent is not just a time for us to re-enact the longing for the Lord’s first coming in the weakness of human flesh, and to rekindle our longing for his return in the glory of risen flesh. It also urges us to focus our minds, to sharpen our attention, so that we might discern the numerous and often subtle reminders of his presence on our path here below, and foretastes of what is to come when he comes in glory.