Christ’s Three “Comings”

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Second Sunday of Advent, Year C

St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center, MN

Sunday, December 5, 2021

Advent is the season we pay particular attention to the three “comings” of Christ. First, we look back to the time in history when Christ, the second Person in the Blessed Trinity, entered our world, i.e. Christ’s historical entrance into time. We look back to the time when divinity invaded our space, when the marriage of heaven and earth took place. We look back to when divinity and humanity became one in Christ. Two thousand years ago, Jesus came in history and became the fulcrum of all history. He became the point by which we understand time. Centuries before him we call BC (Before Christ), and centuries after, we call AD (Anno Domini), the Year of the Lord. Although some modern minds will want you to see the 18th century as the climax of history, as the birth of the modern world, as the turning point of history. They want you to see everything before the 18th century as dark, and everything after that as merely participating in progress and modernity. But Christians say, no, not at all. The 18th century did give us many good things, there were great political and scientific revolutions in that century, but it is not the fulcrum of history. It is not the turning point of history. The turning point and fulcrum of history is the first historical Adventus Christi— the coming of Christ. His dying and rising is the point that all of history revolves. So, during the season of Advent, we look back at that moment, at that time when something unimaginably huge broke into history. We look back at it with deep spiritual attention. Because Christ has come, that’s why the mood of Advent, as our first reading from Prophet Baruch says, is about “taking off the robe of mourning and misery; and putting on the splendor of glory from God forever.”

The second dimension of Advent has to do with the coming of Christ that is happening right now, not just long time ago, but now in the life of the Church. In the second reading, St. Paul says, “I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work in you will continue to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus.” God comes to us through the good work that he accomplishes through us. Christ sends his Holy Spirit to guide the work and activity of his Church. Christ who came to us 2000 years ago, continues to come to us through the work and activity of the Church. Jesus also comes, as the Book of Revelation says, to the door of our hearts. He knocks on the door of our hearts. So, right now, Jesus is coming and knocking on the door of your mind and heart so that he might enter it and continue to carry out good work in you. And not just that, he also comes so that he might make your heart and mind “pure and blameless for the day of Christ.” In his first coming, Christ presented himself in the setting of ancient Israel. But in his coming today, he presents himself in the context of the Church. We can’t know Christ apart from his body, that is his mystical body, the Church. The Church is not unconnected to Christ; she is not just a mere human organization entered into by those who follow him. It’s much more dramatic than that. The Church is the vehicle, the means by which Christ becomes present to his people. He becomes present through the sacraments, especially the Eucharist— the source and summit of the Christian life, through the witness of the saints, through the art and architecture of the Church, through good preaching and the poor. Didn’t Jesus say, “Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers and sisters, you do it to me.” So, in the cry of the poor, in the face of the suffering, we have access to Christ who is knocking right now on the door of our hearts.

The third aspect of Advent is the definitive coming of Christ at the end of time. For Christians, history has a trajectory. It is moving somewhere, toward its culminations, towards the second coming of Christ at the end of time when Christ will draw all things to himself and bring history to its fulfillment. Nothing last forever. A time will come when all the political order and even the cosmic structures will fall apart. This present state of affairs, this old fallen world would give way to what the Bible calls a new heavens and a new earth. The plan of God to finally save, transfigure and transform time, space, history, our very bodies and everything will definitely come to pass. This culminating moment we associate with the Second Coming of Christ at the end of time. When Christ came in history, he definitively won the battle in his dying and rising. In principle, the battle over sin and death has been conquered. But the fight is not over yet. There is still a kind of mop up operation going on. This is why members of the Church on earth is called the Church militant. Advent is a holy season that reminds us anew of the ongoing battle. It calls us to wake up from our spiritual slumber and to prepare, as John the Baptist announces in today’s Gospel. Let us  try to welcome him into our hearts now so that we can get into his army and fight the good fight. Although everyday should be about preparation to encounter the Lord who came in history, who comes now and who is coming at the end of time, the season of Advent is a time of intensifying the preparation.