Advent adventures

By chhotebhai

Kanpur, Nov 29, 2022: The Advent season is upon us. It is a preparation for Christmas, depending on our priorities. The Hindi word for Advent is Aagman. It is the same word used at airports for Arrivals. Advent means just that – the coming or arrival of somebody or thing.

Can Advent be an adventure? It can. However, the Catholic liturgy for Advent is more foreboding than adventurous. There are promises of hope that are more often than not overshadowed by the sound and fury of the Second Coming. This is in sharp contrast to the gentleness and non-threatening nature of the First Coming.

Now for some tricky questions. Is Jesus still to come? Has he come and gone? Will he come again? Has he already arrived? Imagine standing at the Arrivals gate at the airport with a bouquet of red roses, awaiting a loved one; only to discover that he/ she has taken a cab and already reached home! Wouldn’t that make us look real stupid? Are we really so?

What is the evidence? Where is Jesus? How do we find him? Biblical history provides the answers. Isaiah’s prophecy about the coming of Jesus is so beautiful. “It will happen in the final days that the mountain of Yahweh’s house will rise higher than the mountains … They will hammer their swords into ploughshares and their spears into sickles. Nation will not lift sword against nation, no longer will they learn how to make war” (Is 2:2,4).

This text is traditionally used to point to the birth of Jesus. But from Herod’s slaughter of the Innocents and the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt we can hardly claim that this prophecy was fulfilled. In the name of religion, even the Catholic Church has used violence against perceived “heretics and pagans”. Try telling those who suffered through two world wars, or those in Ukraine, that there is no such thing as war. So is Jesus yet to come?

In the build up to Advent we get a heavy dose of readings from the book of Revelation, earlier called the Apocalypse. This comes from the Greek word apokolypsis that means “lifting of the veil.” These frightening scenarios are often linked to the Second Coming of Jesus. But biblical scholars tell us that this was written when the nascent Christians were being violently persecuted by the Roman emperors Nero (54-68 CE), Vesapian (69-79) and Domitian (81-96). So we still don’t have the answer, the veil has not yet been lifted.

We also have vivid descriptions of the end of the world/Second Coming from Nostradamus (Latin for Michel de Nostradame) who lived from December 14,1503 to July 2,1566; and Malachy, the bishop of Armagh in Northern Ireland in the 12th century, though his prophecies were published much later in 1595. More recently we had the prophecy of the Mayans of South America that the world would end on December 21, 2012. But hey, we are still around!

What does the Bible say about Jesus’ Second Coming, or the end of time? Again we get conflicting answers, so need to sift the chaff from the grain. The great St Paul erroneously warned that “The time has become limited, and from now on those who have wives should live as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, those who enjoy life as though they did not enjoy it; those who have been buying property as though they had no possessions … because this world as we know it is passing away” (1 Cor 7:29-31). Like Isaiah before him, Paul had got it wrong.

Peter, though more circumspect, also shared a similar view when he warned, “The time has come, the moment is here for you to stop sleeping and wake up, because by now our salvation is nearer than when we first began to believe” (Rom 13:11).

In the post Ascension period both Peter and Paul, who had a limited world view, were erroneously led to believe in the imminent Second Coming of Jesus and the end of the world. With the benefit of hindsight we know that they were way off the mark. This isn’t getting anywhere. So let us return to the Gospels for the answers.

Jesus, as always, puts things in their correct perspective when he says, “As for that day and hour, nobody knows it, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, no one but the Father alone” (Mat 24:36). Hence he advises us to “Stay awake, because you do not know either the day or the hour” (Mat 25:13). We see that imminence (the immediate) is replaced by watchfulness (eternal vigilance that has no time constraint).

This attitudinal change is reflected in other writings. At the Ascension the disciples were naturally apprehensive at Jesus’ imminent “departure”, and enquired about his return. His reply, “It is not for you to know times and dates that the Father has decided by his own authority” (Acts 1:7).

The Uncertainty principle now kicks in with Paul saying “Do not live in the dark, that the Day should take you unawares like a thief (1 Thes 5:40). And again, “Now we see only reflections in a mirror, mere riddles, but then we shall be seeing face to face. Now I can know only imperfectly” (1 Cor 13:12).

This uncertainty is replaced by clarity in the verses that accompany the above. “But you will receive the power of the Holy Spirit which will come on you, and then you will be my witnesses” (Acts 1:8). “When I was a child I used to talk like a child, and see things like a child, and think like a child; but now I have become an adult, I have finished with all childish ways” (1 Cor 13:11).

We need both the gift of the Holy Spirit and human effort to comprehend the mystery of Jesus’ coming, going or being. Saddened at Jesus’ impending “departure” he comforts his disciples saying, “When the Spirit of truth comes he will lead you to complete truth … he will reveal to you the things to come … In a short time you will no longer see me and then a short time later you will see me again” (Jn 16:11,16). This is what Jesus had earlier told Nicodemus. “No one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above” (Jn 3:3).

This spiritual rebirth is not some magical formula. It requires human endeavour. That is why Peter advises us to add knowledge to our faith (cf 2 Pet 1:5). About this process of growth Paul says “I was not able to talk to you as spiritual people: I had to talk to you as people … still infants in Christ; I fed you with milk not solid food, for you were not able to take it” (1 Cor 3:2). The letter to the Hebrews is even more forthright. “We have many things to say, and they are difficult to explain because you have grown so slow at understanding. Indeed when you should by this time have become masters, you need someone to teach you all over again … you have gone back to needing milk, and not solid food. Truly no one who is still living on milk can digest the doctrine of saving justice, being still a baby. Solid food is for adults with minds trained by practice to distinguish between good and bad” (Heb 5:11-14). The Jesuits call this spiritual discernment.

Spiritual rebirth, discernment and a rational faith teach us that Jesus has not gone. He is very much in our midst, not just in the holy Eucharist. “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me, and I live in that person” (Jn 6:56). Elsewhere we read, “”Where two or three meet in my name, I am there among them” (Mat 18:20). “In truth I tell you, in so far as you do this to one of the least of these my brothers of mine, you did it to me” (Mat 25:41). “Remain in me, as I in you” (Jn 15:3)

God’s presence is not something abstract, it becomes manifest. “Whoever remains in me, with me in him, bears fruit in plenty” (Jn 15:5). These fruits of the Spirit are “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Gal 5:22). We then hear Jesus say, “Look I am with you always; yes, to the end of time” (Mat 28:20).

Are we still standing at the airport with that bouquet? He has already come and abides in and around us. We need to recognize him. Then indeed Advent will be a joyous adventure, a voyage of discovery.

(These thoughts are further expounded in the writer’s book “The Jerusalem Code.”)