Introduction

This article is the December 2009 installment of my monthly message in the parish newsletter for Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Beatrice, Neb.

Coming Soon

One of the little pleasures I enjoy is watching a movie in the theatre. I even look forward to seeing the previews screened before the main feature. Some previews will end with a definite promise: Opening Christmas Day. But others, scheduled for sometime further down the road, will only tantalize us with a vague promise: Coming Soon.

This leaves us with the bittersweet task of waiting. On the one hand, waiting requires us to defer the fulfillment of our expectation. But on the other hand, the anticipation that builds in us makes the fulfillment—when it arrives—that much more satisfying and worth the wait.

Advent

The Church begins a new year on Nov. 29. As is our tradition, we start with the season of Advent, the “little Lent,” a mildly penitential time. We find ourselves in the posture of waiting, expecting, anticipating, and preparing. We are getting ready for our Lord Jesus Christ to come to us. This is the meaning of the word “Advent”—from the Latin ad, meaning “to,” and venire, meaning “come.”

With our ancestors in the faith—Zechariah, Elizabeth, the Virgin Mary, Joseph, Simeon, Anna, and John the Baptist—we are looking for the coming of God’s Chosen One, the Messiah, his Anointed One, the Christ. We trust that Jesus is that one. And so we prepare for his coming.

Waiting and Watching

Our Labradoodle, Zeke, has an almost inhuman capacity to wait and to watch with patience. He will sit by the front window of our dining room—statue still—and watch vigilantly for whichever one of us is gone to return home. For Zeke, almost every day is a time of Advent.

When we leave, we don’t ever tell Zeke when we will return. But in his canine mind, it must be that he believes we are coming soon, or at least soon enough so that he can wait and watch.

Past, Present, and Future

For us, Advent is that time of preparing for Christ’s coming. Most obviously we ready ourselves to celebrate his birth. This is his coming as Mary’s infant son, the Word made flesh, Immanuel, meaning “God with us.”

But we also prepare ourselves for the coming of Jesus Christ into our lives. In Advent, we are reminded that every time we encounter him, we experience a Christmas moment. He is enfleshed in our midst—he is incarnate—when he comes to us in the washing of Holy Baptism, the renewing of our lives through Confession and Absolution, the proclaiming of his Word in the reading of Scripture and in preaching, and the sharing of his Body and Blood in Holy Communion.

And finally, Advent is that sacred time when we join with all of the Father’s “servants of every time and every place,” and cry out for our Lord to come again in the power of the Holy Spirit. In the Eucharist, we proclaim this mystery of faith: “Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.” And then in our Eucharistic Prayer, we join our voices with all of God’s people and cry out the ancient prayer of the faithful: “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!” (Rev. 22:20b, NRSV)

Definite and Open Promise

Come, Lord Jesus!

This is our prayer, the hope driving our preparation, the confession of faith empowering our time of waiting and watching. We trust the promise of our Lord, who says, “Surely I am coming soon.” (Rev. 22:20a, NRSV) And so we wait and we watch for that day when he will return to mark the end of this world, this life, these times of joy and pain.

On that day, the previews will end and the main feature will begin. We may not know the exact date the Kingdom will debut, but the promise, “Coming Soon,” is one we can trust.