Are we aware of the three comings of Christ?

THE TIMES CHRIST COMES

Lk. 3: 1-6

When it comes to what has happened in the last 24 hours, we must be the most informed people who have ever lived.  We read about it every day in the morning newspaper, watch it on the evening news and, we have it texted to us on our mobiles and it appears on our computers.  But how much do we know about what happened 1,000 or 2,000 years ago?

Do many of us not really care about the past?  Are our primary interests the new electronic gadgets, the latest film and the most recent trend in the stock market?  What do we care about bygone days?  Do we say the events of the past have nothing to do with us?

Our Gospel reading for today addresses that short-sighted view of life.  It begins with a brief history lesson.  Saint Luke takes us back to the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar when Pontius Pilate was the procurator of Judea and Herod was the tetrarch of Galilee.  That information was not his primary concern but only the setting in which he would introduce the ministry of John the Baptist.  Once he had set the stage, he wrote, “The word of God came to John, the son of Zechariah, in the wilderness.”  That was his primary interest.

So, why the history lesson?  What did it matter who was emperor in Rome and why mention those other subordinate rulers?  What does this brief page of the past have to do with you and me 2000 years later?

Luke wrote these words to reminder us that long ago in time God really did come into our world.  He wanted his readers to know that this event was not the story of some dreamer but a report of an actual event.  Something new and important happened.  John the Baptist introduced this event by saying, “Prepare a way for the Lord.”  In other words, get ready for God, because He will soon appear, coming in a way that He has never come before.

At a particular date on the calendar and a particular place on the map, God entered our world.  He did it in His way.  He came as a little Baby.  Then 30 years later, while John was baptising in the River Jordan, He just walked onto the scene, looking like any ordinary man asking to be baptised.  As the weeks and months followed, He showed Himself to be the most extraordinary Man who ever lived.

There was a quality to His life that amazed even His friends.  He seemed to be everything that everybody ought to be, and no one else was.  Those who knew Him best could explain it only one way.  This ordinary man was more than a man. He was the Messiah.  He was God made Man.  That is what Luke wanted us to know.

Yes, Jesus entered our world as a Man 2000 years ago but He is still with us right now, today.  This may be the most difficult thing for us to believe about God.  We find it fairly easy to believe that He lived on our Earth in the past.  It is not too difficult to think of Him as coming at the end of the world to judge the living and the dead.  But some find it hard to believe that He is with us now.  To many, God seems to be very far away.  When they see so much trouble and evil in our world, they feel they are living in a God-forsaken world.  They cannot believe that He would want to live with such a wicked world today.

That is not an unfamiliar feeling.  The Bible is full of it.  Isaiah said, “Truly you are God who hides.”  Job lamented, “O that I knew where I might find Him.” 

Is the reason for this because we expect God to appear in dramatic and unusual ways?  This is not how God wishes to appear.  We look for Him to solve problems.  Instead He gives us the ability to solve them ourselves.  We look for Him to lift our burdens.  Instead, He gives us the strength to bear them. The ancient world looked for Him to appear as a conquering warrior.  Instead He came as a Baby, born in a manger.

Advent is a time of expectancy.  We anticipate and look forward to the coming of Christ.  We need this time of renewal.  But while we are doing this, let us not forget that the Christ – in Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity - is already here in the Holy Eucharist.  He came to dwell among His people a long time ago, and from that day to this has never left us.

We also know that Jesus will come again into our world.  We sometimes call that “the second coming of Christ”.  I am not too happy with that term, because it leaves out the times He is present with us now.  If Christ came in the first century and will not come again until the end of time, that leaves a terrible wide gap.  On the night before He died, Jesus said to His Apostles, “I will not leave you orphans.” (Jn 14:18).  That did not mean that humanity was being left until He would come again in a few thousand years.  It meant that He would send the Holy Spirit every time they needed Him.

We need to revise our thinking about the comings of Christ.  Yes, He will come in the clouds at the final judgement.  But in the meantime, we need to think of His coming to us every time we receive Holy Communion.  We should also see the image of Jesus in the loving care of a friend, or inside the shabby clothes of a beggar, or in the emaciated body of an AIDS patient.  Advent is the season when we look forward to the coming of Christ, but let us not look too far forward, lest we miss His presence in our lives today.  This is a thought to consider this Advent which can so easily be overlooked.

Lord Jesus, in whatever guise You come and whenever You come may we be ready to give You the heartfelt welcome You deserve.

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