Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish

FR MICHAEL BIBLICAL IMAGERY

(Fr Michael Boakye Yeboah: Vice Rector of St Gregory Seminary, Kumasi-Ghana)

ADVENTUS

            Advent comes from the Latin adventus, “coming.” The Vulgate uses this expression to translate the Greek word parousia, which means “coming” or “presence”, and more often than not refers to the eschatological coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. In Acts 7:52 adventus translates the word Eleusis, “coming”, but in this context it refers to Christ’s first advent.

            Most of us are used to associating Advent with “expectation” but in this reflection, I will like to look at Advent from its Greek origin and translation. It is a translation of the Greek word parousia, which means “presence” or more accurately, “arrival”, that is, the beginning of a presence. In antiquity the word was a technical term for the presence of a king or ruler or of the god being worshipped, who bestows upon his devotees the time of his parousia. “Advent”, then, means the presence begun – the presence of God himself.

            Advent reminds us, therefore, of two things: first, that God’s presence in the world has already begun, that he is present, albeit in a hidden manner; second, that his presence has only begun and is not yet full and complete, that it is in a state of development, of becoming, and maturing toward its full form. His presence has already begun, and we the faithful, are the ones through whom he wishes to be present in the world. Through our faith, hope, and love, he wants his light to shine over and over again into the night of the world.

            Advent means the arrival of the Lord that has already begun but has only just begun. This also means that the Christian looks not only to the past and what has been but also to what is coming. Amid all the catastrophes of this world, he has a transcendent certainty that the seed of the Light is growing in secret, until one day the good will achieve a definitive victory and all else will be made subject to it. On that day, Christ will come again. The Christian knows that the presence of God that has now only begun will someday be a full and complete presence.

            For the Christian to enjoy His presence now and when he comes in his glory, the inspired writer counsels him/her to stay vigilant. The Gospel of today insists firmly on the sort of vigilance that does not try to study earthly circumstances for hints of God’s coming, since God erupts into history vertically, from on high. Precisely because he comes at an hour when no one is expecting him, one has to be constantly expectant. The disciples of Jesus were understandably curious to know when that Second Coming would take place and the manner in which it would happen. Jesus told them that a far more important consideration was that they be prepared for that Second Coming, so that whenever it should happen and whatever form it might take, they would be prepared to meet the Son of Man, the Christ.

            The reason is that the Second Coming will mean different things to different people. For some people – those who will have prepared themselves for it – it will bring joy eternal, liberation from the vicissitudes of this earthly life. For others, however, - those who will have failed to prepare themselves – it will spell doom, disaster everlasting. That is the sense in which two men will be in the fields, “one is taken, one left; of two women at the millstone grinding, one is taken, one left.” That is why the all-important issue is whether or not people are prepared to meet the Son of Man when he comes again in glory, not when and how he will come.

            According to Jesus on today’s Gospel passage, the way to prepare for his Second Coming is to “stay awake”. In other words, the key is “constant vigilance”. The reason is quite simple: no one knows when the Second Coming will be. It may be tomorrow, next year, or many millennia yet to come. If people are always prepared for the Second Coming, then it should not matter when or how it will happen, because it will not take them unawares. It will always find them ready; it will find them “awake.”

            This necessary vigilance demands above all that one distinguish oneself from the routine of the unexpectant world. At most it has its own aims in mind, aims that have no real impact on daily patterns of “eating and drinking and marrying”, since people normally do these things without the slightest awareness that God’s advent might roll over them like the great Deluge. Paul calls this purely earthly activity “the works of darkness”, because it is not oriented toward the dawning light. He does not devalue earthly things: eating and drinking continue but not “carousing and drunkenness”; marriage continues, but without “sexual excess and lust”; work in the fields and at the mill remains but “without quarreling and jealousy”. Earthly life is regulated and restrained, reduced to necessities, when one expects God. This world’s activity is sleep, and it is high time to awake from it. Awakening itself is light’s dawning, an equipping of oneself with “armor of light” to fight the urge to doze off into the God-forsaken business of the world.

            In the light of the Lord, Isaiah’s great opening vision in the first reading reveals that those who expect God are a spiritual mountain whose light provides an orientation point for all nations. From this point alone can justice intervene in international strife, at this point alone is the incessant intra-worldly warfare quieted into God’s peace, here alone can the world that by itself is darkened “walk in the light of the Lord.” Of course, in the perspective of both Old and New Testaments, this does not take place without separation and judgment: one will be taken and the other left behind. For a deaf world, the very promise of a God who is coming contains a threat, yet a threat only in the sense of an admonition to be vigilant and ready. To the vigilant, God’s advent is no cause for fear: at the advent of God “lift up your head, for your salvation is near” (Luke 21:28).

            Whatever situation people wish the Second Coming to find them in, they should begin to live in that situation right now, and persevere in that situation all through life. Whatever they wish the Second Coming to find them doing, they should begin to do those things right now, and persevere in doing them all through life. That is how to prepare for the Second Coming of Christ, how to “stay awake” and be constantly vigilant.