The Beginnings of Advent
The distant beginnings of Advent are in the earliest days of Christianity when those who followed Jesus expected that he would return in glory very soon indeed. They thought it would happen in the immediate future. But it did not!
Over the first several decades, it became clear to Christians that he was not going to return as soon as they thought he would; and yet there were his words about his coming again! This was one of the first unexpected things that the early church had to digest and build into its future.
Throughout the Old Testament, there was an expectation that ‘someone’ would come from God. This ‘someone’ was called by several names: the ‘Messiah”, that is the One Anointed by God, or ‘the prophet like Moses’, or ‘the descendant of David’ or ‘Elijah returning’, or simply ‘He who is to come’, as the Baptist calls him (Matt.11.2-15; Luke 7.18-28).
Jesus comes. He does not fit the profile that many had of this one who is to come as was the case with John the Baptist in the passages quoted in the last paragraph. And so, all the conflicts arise that are such a constant part of all four of the gospels. He is set aside and rejected. We need to note that he is a surprise for the people of his time, as he can be for us. Those of his time wanted him to fit the patterns they wanted him to fit, rather than that they fit the pattern his words and life were taking and the newness that he was offering them.
Given his being rejected, there arose the expectation that God in his fidelity would set things right and that Jesus would return in glory. This expectation was expressed in the language of those days, in the language of the Scriptures which they inherited.
As time went on, Christians pondered the coming of Christ and what it meant. In the fourth century, the celebration of Christmas and Advent began. Christmas was established as a feast in 336AD. This was created to fill the gap between Christ’s coming in the flesh and his future coming. So, while we celebrate the birth of Jesus, we also look to the fact that what he came to do remains incomplete.
The feast of Christmas was established as a celebration of his first coming among human beings as that is recounted in the Gospels of St Matthew and St Luke and as it is developed theologically in the Gospel of St John (1. 1-18). So, we began to celebrate Christ’s birth as his coming. But the promise that he would come again could not be set aside and so from the first days of the season of Advent, the Old Testament promises of someone who was to come are recounted along with the fulfillment of those promises in the life and words of Jesus.
Advent celebrates the fact that we live in an ‘in-between’ time. We live in-between his first coming and the completion of that coming in his future. We pray that he will ‘keep coming’ until his coming is complete.
We are involved in three ‘comings’ of the Lord: his coming two thousand ears ago as one of us human beings; the completion of his coming in the future; and importantly in his constant coming to us now through his word spoken into our present, in the celebration of the Eucharist and in the constant prompting of his Spirit working among us.
By: Fr Frank O’Loughlin
19 Brenbeal Street, Balwyn VIC 3103
Telephone: 03 9816 9291
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Laura Facci says:
Thank you Father for this wonderful explanation of Advent.