Two of the three comings are very easily detected in the liturgical texts of advent. One of them is uppermost in the minds and hearts of all of us, and it is reflected in the hymns, images and symbols that surround us at this time. It is the first coming of Jesus, his coming in poverty some two thousand years ago to be our Saviour. The cribs we put up in our churches and our homes is its evocative symbol. We will begin there.
Many of the texts of the Advent liturgy invite us to reenact the long journey of the chosen people as they waited for the coming of the one who would save them. How often we have savoured the beautiful prophecies the Church proposes for us as readings during Advent, especially those from Isaiah. We get a taste of them in the Sunday liturgies, but there are as well so many beautiful texts of this kind in the weekday liturgies. They point to the Saviour's coming and to God's decisive intervention to set things right, and for us Christians they set the stage for the humble entry of God incarnate in our world, which was the beginning of God's decisive intervention on our behalf. As we move further into the season of Advent more emphasis is given to this first coming, to the stories of immediate preparation for the birth of Jesus, especially those found in Luke's gospel, and also to stories about John the Baptist, who earliest years are also featured in Luke's gospel, but who later prepared the way for Jesus' public ministry as Messiah. The tone is warm, intimate, familial. And as Christians we believe that when we contemplate any scene of Christ's earthly life, what happens is not simply an empty memorial. Jesus is really there to meet us and to grace us in our prayer. So the birth of Christ in Bethlehem is not a hazy event of the past which we try to clothe with vividness in our imagination: in a mystical but real way the event happens all over again for us, we relive it, and share in its graces.
But if one looks at many of the texts proposed by the Church for Advent, they have two meanings. There are two comings. What the chosen people expected was the end of the world, the beginnings of the new heaven and the new earth, the coming of the Messiah, and that is the way they read the prophetic texts from the Hebrew Scriptures the Church features in Advent. We have the same expectation and understand these texts the same way, but there is a key difference: for us there are two comings of Christ, the first one which has already occurred, in poverty and humility, which our Jewish brothers and sisters do not acknowledge, the second one in majesty and power, where the reign of God inaugurated in the first coming is definitively established and we are ushered into the new heaven and the new earth. This second coming is highlighted in the first weeks of Advent, which continue the end of the world emphasis of the last weeks of ordinary time.
We are not really expecting the first coming any more. It has already taken place in history. But we are delighted to re-enact it each year, and to receive the beautiful graces which the Lord has in store for us as we relive it. We are, however, expecting the second coming, in which all the hidden graces of the first coming, the love and the vulnerability shown by Jesus from his birth to his death on the cross, are shown to be what they really are: a glorious manifestation of God's real power, a power which does not oppress and dominate us, but sets us free and enables us to be our real selves.
The texts of Advent take us in two directions simultaneously, but these two directions are profoundly linked. The first and the second coming go together. The first coming is a preparation for the second coming. The essential grace is already found in the first coming: Emmanuel, God present to us. But God's power is mostly hidden to us, functioning under the guise of vulnerability and compassion. The second coming is the fulfillment of the first coming. What was hidden becomes fully known under the guise of majesty and glory and power. That is when the seeds of new life deeply planted in us when Christ is born in our hearts will fully transform our fragile and weak selves and our topsy turvy world. In other words our life is shaped by the already now of the first coming and the not yet of the second coming. We live in hope, and that is the key virtue pointed out to us during this holy season of Advent.
Let us summarize what we have been saying in the words of the first preface of Advent:
When he humbled himself to come among us as a human being, he fulfilled the plan you formed long ago and opened for us the way to salvation.
Now we watch for the day, hoping that the salvation promised us will be ours when Christ our Lord will come again in his glory.
This preface says it simply and profoundly, and there is no need for us to further delve into first and the second coming.
However in the title of this talk we refer to the three comings of Christ. What have we missed? Let us paraphrase St. Bernard, a great monk and theologian of the 12th century. His text, in the office of readings during the first week of Advent, gives a clear explanation of yet another coming:
We know that there are three comings of the Lord. The third lies between the other two. It is invisible, while the other two are visible. In the first coming he was seen on earth, dwelling among human beings; he himself testifies that they saw him and many hated him. In the final coming all flesh will see the salvation of our God, and they will look on him whom they pierced. The intermediate coming is a hidden one; in it only those on the path to God see the Lord within their own selves, and they experience salvation. In his first coming our Lord came in our flesh and in our weakness; in this middle coming he comes in spirit and in power; in the final coming he will be seen in glory and majesty.
So from this text we see that this coming, not referred to as clearly in the Advent liturgy as the first two, is found between the first and the second. It is invisible. Indeed it is a series of comings within our inmost hearts in the course of our earthly lives. Jesus comes to us with his challenges and his empowerment, his invitations and his consolation. His comings are subtle, and we can easily miss them. We need to be ever alert, because we do not know the time nor the hour of our visitation. Let us continue with Bernard:
In case someone should think that what we say about this middle coming is sheer invention, listen to what our Lord himself says: If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him... Where is God's word to be kept? Obviously in the heart, as the prophet says: I have hidden your words in my heart, so that I may not sin against you.Because this coming lies between the other two, it is like a road on which we travel from the first coming to the last. In the first, Christ was our redemption; in the last, he will appear as our life; in this middle coming, he is our rest and consolation.
Keep God's word in this way. Let it enter into your very being, let it take possession of your desires and your whole way of life...Your soul will delight in its richness. Fill your soul with richness and strength.
If you keep the word of God in this way, it will also keep you. The Son with the Father will come to you. The great Prophet who will build the new Jerusalem will come, the one who makes all things new. This coming will fulfill what is written: As we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, we shall also bear the likeness of the heavenly man. Just as Adam's sin spread through all humankind and took hold of all, so Christ, who created and redeemed all, will glorify all, once he takes possession of all.
This intermediate coming is really a series of many comings in the course of our daily lives. They prepare us for the final coming of Christ who will take possession of all and glorify all. We are like the virgins who wait for the Master's coming with their lamps trimmed, not knowing the hour. If we learn to detect the signs of his coming in our daily lives, we will be all the more ready to discern his presence in the end-time events.
So Advent is not just a way for us to remember and to reenact the Lord's first coming in the weakness of human flesh and to remind ourselves that He will come again in the glory of risen flesh. It is also a way for us learn how to focus our minds, to sharpen our attention, so that we might discern the numerous and often subtle reminders of his presence on our path here below, foretastes of what is to come. Indeed our lives are strewn with reminders of his presence, nudges and invitations to ready ourselves for when he returns in glory. The first coming is in the past; the second in the future; between them He continually comes to us in our lives, pointing us in the direction of his final coming.
Here are two questions which may stimulate our further prayer and reflection: What role does the second coming play in our Advent observance, and how well do we detect the continual signs of the comings of the Lord in our daily life? What would be signs of his presence?
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