For the First Sunday of Advent, Cycle C
We live our lives between two moments: already, and not yet.
You find that phrase in discussions of eschatology--already but not yet. Eschatology is, very simply, the study of the last things. Everything ends. We are not pagans. We do not believe in an eternal recurrence: this idea that life is a cycle that keeps repeating in an endless circle. There is no reincarnation. The Bible begins with the world beginning, and it ends with the world ending so a new heaven and a new earth can be born, and in between we are shown visions that try to convey some of what will happen at the end in symbolic terms.
That's eschatology, and Jesus was an eschatological preacher. He preached extensively about his second coming, the end times, and the coming Kingdom of heaven. When Jesus says in the book of Revelation I am the Alpha and the Omega, he's saying he is the beginning, and the end. Alpha is the first letter of the Greek Alphabet. Omega is the last. As the Alpha, he was the Word who spoke the world into being. As the Omega, he will come on clouds of glory to usher in the ending.
Okay, so what? How does this help us right now?
It helps us by showing us how to live as a people who are redeemed—as a people of hope, in a world that sometimes seems purpose built to shatter our peace and dissolve our faith.
When you pluck a string on a stringed instrument, it vibrates. That's because it’s held firmly at two points. At the bridge, where it begins, and at the peg, where it ends.
Our lives are like that string, plucked by the hand of God and vibrating between two poles. There is natural tension in that. If you know anything about stringed instruments, you know that the tension has to be correct for the string to be in tune. If it's too loose, the note is flat. If it's too tight, the note is sharp. It needs to be exactly right.
We're a bit like that too, aren't we. Many of us sometimes are wound a little too tightly, or feeling a little too slack. There’s a lot of anxiety and depression in life, and some of it is beyond our control. Some of it is just the cost of being human in a fallen world. But we’re all struggling to find just the right balance between not enough and too much. We’re seeking that place where we can live in hopeful happiness and await the coming of the lord. Jesus can help with that.
That's what he’s calling us to do today in the gospel. He’s calling us to be prepared, not weighed down by our stresses and our bad choices, but alert with our instruments tuned and our eyes on the great conductor.
Because he will come to us at some point. Yes, at the second coming, but at the end of our lives, too, and we know neither the day nor the hour when that will happen. All of us live with the end before us, if not the end of the world in our lifetimes, then certainly our own end. And that's okay, if we trust in the Lord. If we stay vigilant, hearken to his word, and follow his call.
As Christians we need to behave as though any moment could be our last, yet here is the paradox: that is not a cause of fear for us. Endings frighten people, but we have no need to be anxious, because Christ has borne the burden and won the victory. We know how this story ends. The good guys win.
And this is what we mean by already but not yet. It captures the tensions alive in Christianity: we are already freed from sin and death by the cross, but are not yet part of the fulfilled kingdom that comes when Christ returns.
And that’s how we start Advent. Advent is the beginning of the beginning, the prelude to the birth of the messiah, and in advent we look back to the start, and forward to the end.
That’s because beginnings and endings are inextricably linked. We begin the advent journey of preparing for the coming of the Lord by fixing our eyes on our destination in today’s readings. The end. Only then can we start right. It's the same with our lives. We have to face forward and think about where we're going before we can even begin to get there. And so here, at the start of the season that welcomes Emmanuel, God with us, we think about how it all ends.
We are preparing for his coming as the infant son of our Blessed Mother. We’re recalling the anticipation humanity felt for all those years before the first Christmas. Their advent was a watchful waiting for the messiah. Ours is a watchful waiting for his return. We look back to the one who came as infant in swaddling clothes, but also forward to the one who comes on clouds of glory. The one who tells us today to stay alert. Salvation was begun in the wood of the manger. I was achieved on the wood of cross. And it is yet to come at the end of time.
Already, but not yet.
That is why we begin this advent by looking to the end, as we wait in joyful hope for the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ. The one who came 2000 years ago, the one who is with us now at this eucharistic feast, and the one who is to come.
Peace be with you.
+