Advent Week 2 – Full Focus

When “golden October” turns to “somber November” (T.S. Eliot), holidays are on the horizon. For those of us living in the Northern hemisphere, the darkness comes early; the palpable bite in the air carries with it the first rumors of winter. In one sense, the natural instinct is to huddle around the open fire and prepare for the long hibernation. Yet there is also plenty that is energizing, with the season marked by a kind of fullness.

The commercial calendar of the broader culture, for example, generates no shortage of buzz: shopping, gatherings, good cheer, Christmas spirit and the like. Thus there are gifts to be received, but also challenges to be navigated. In light of this, the church’s liturgical life offers a key counterpoint. It calls into question a merely sanguine approach, as well as the tendency toward sentimentalism.

Contrary to the spirit of the cultural mainstream, preacher and teacher Fleming Rutledge has noted the lectionary readings take an “apocalyptic” turn following All Saints’ and the weeks preceding Advent. Few words can get the blood flowing like apocalypse. While misconceptions abound, the word’s plain meaning is revelation or unveiling. The fullness of “God the Father almighty” is made known in the only begotten Son (Jn. 1:18). These are the days of waiting, longing, and hoping for God’s self-disclosure, namely: the once and future advent of Jesus Christ. During this time, the church catholic has established its own habits of being, due sense of expectation, and indeed, experience of fullness.

The waiting and anticipation of Advent is “strangely rich and fulfilling,” writes the priest-poet Malcolm Guite, it “falls in winter, at the end of the year, in the dark and cold, but its focus is on the coming of light and life.” Advent, then, is a paradoxical season. The Prologue to Saint John’s Gospel is an essential text for exploring fullness and engaging paradox: Eternal Word and Christ child, light and darkness, a world created by the Word and a world that knows Him not, the glory of God revealed in the humility of the Son. Such themes convey paradox and mystery: realities that are, in truth, wondrously compatible and mutually illuminating.

In the Christian story, what appears contradictory is held together as a unified whole. In his classic study on the Puritans, Harvard historian Perry Miller wrote: “They believed that all knowledge was one, that life was unified, that science, economics, political theory, aesthetic standards, rhetoric and art, all were organized in a hierarchical scale of values that tended upward to the end-all and be-all of creation, the glory of God. They insisted that all human activity be regulated by that purpose.” To speak of the unity of knowledge is to be in good company with the Evangelist: “all things came into being through him, and without him, not one thing has come into being.” All things were made through Christ, and all things are redeemed by grace. Such claims reveal the capacious nature of the Gospel: the all-encompassing good tidings and great joy of Christ’s advent.

Furthermore, the Eternal Word—who was with God and who was God—becomes the Incarnate Lord: “the Word became flesh and lived among us and we have seen his glory.” It is worth noting that glory, in this context, pertains to the flesh, rather than the purely spiritual. That God became human is an ample safeguard against the old heresies—Gnosticism chief among them—that “virus in the bloodstream of religion and keeps resurfacing every generation or so” (Eugene Peterson).

Each week during the fall term, Young Life’s college fellowship has engaged John’s Prologue, with various speakers exploring different angles. Recently I hosted a panel with three Hope College student-athletes, representing volleyball, football, and cross-country. The basic idea was to see John 1 through the eyes of an athlete: discipline in training, excellence in preparation, humility in victory, grace in defeat, and sacrifice of private interest for the sake of the team—each reflecting Saint Irenaeus’ adage, “the glory of God is humanity fully alive.” All such pursuits matter because all things were made by God through Christ. They reflect the Advent fact that the Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood (Jn 1:18, MSG).

The Word became flesh—and we have seen his glory. This might lead one to further wonder: what might glory look like? C.S. Lewis here is worth quoting at length:

Meanwhile the cross comes before the crown and tomorrow is a Monday morning. A cleft has opened in the pitiless walls of the world, and we are invited to follow our great Captain inside. The following Him is, of course, the essential point…It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbor. The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbor’s glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken.

Lewis’ reflections unlock another paradox: the weight of glory is the way of humility. When Jesus speaks of glory in John’s Gospel, he is often referring to his death by crucifixion. Jesus Christ emptied himself of all the rights and privileges of the Eternal Son of God in order to save the world. Hence humility is at the heart of the Advent message: “we have seen his glory…full of grace and truth.”

Advent, in the end, is the season where we watch for grace. God became human in Christ: thus the glorious truth that grace is is offered “far as the curse is found.” According to the old theologians, grace does not destroy nature, but perfects it; all creation will one day be healed and whole. Grace can be received, then, in ways that are humane and ordinary: a meal with loved ones, helping a neighbor in need, playing catch in the backyard, a circle of friends around a good fire.

And yet, Fleming Rutledge reminds us that “if the Christian faith is going to have any guts, it simply cannot be satisfied with exclusively human hope.” The gift of Advent is that ordinary means of grace are given full focus. The church’s witness, therefore, of waiting, longing, and hoping prepares us to receive abundantly beyond what we could be ask or imagine: the fullness of Grace upon grace.

Written by Joel Boersma

WEEK 2 INTERIORIZATION

Read it over and over again. Make notes.
Write it out. Draw Pictures. Get it inside.

There was a man sent from God,
whose name was John.
He came as a witness to testify to the light,
so that all might believe through him.
He himself was not the light,
but he came to testify to the light.
The true light, which enlightens everyone,
was coming into the world.