Advent means the Coming or Arrival. Each year Christians join in a four-week, end of calendar, spiritual journey. But it is a little difficult for us to comprehend exactly what is coming, whether it comes now, or only at the journey’s end.
I’ll start with the coming of light that dispels the darkness of suffering and the coming of life that is personified in Jesus, the Messiah, who identified Himself as the Way (the Truth and the Life). This festive time points both to His coming in history over 2,000 years ago and His second coming that believers trust will come at some unforeseen time of which we cannot know the day nor the hour. Some contend that this final arrival will occur with the end of the world as we know it, when all on earth will witness it together; others are convinced that it occurs each day as people take their final earthly breath before entering the open and loving arms of our Christ who comes to welcome them.
For most of us, the story begins with a sacred genealogy illustrating that Jesus of Nazareth comes from the House of David, while David is a descendant of Abraham and the patriarchs, who are descendants of Adam and Eve. In Christian scriptures, the story is ignited by the Annunciation, when an angel of God informs Mary that she has been chosen from among all women of all time to bring forth the divine One in human form. Though she realizes that it is impossible, she is reminded by her celestial visitor that nothing is impossible with God. So, she trusts: “Let it be done to me according to your word.” Then she visits her aged relative, Elizabeth, in Ein Karem, a region of Judea, to be with her when another impossible birth—that of John the Baptist—takes place.
Christians today commemorate John’s birth on June 24, six months before Christmas Eve, when daylight of the northern hemisphere is elongated to its fullest. John, whose role is to prepare the Way of the Lord, says: “I must become less so that He can become more” or “I will grow dimmer so that He will become brighter.” As daylight from late June lessens we are gradually overtaken by the darkness of the winter solstice in late December that offers the shortest daylight of the year. But each day after Christmas, the sun burns brighter and the days grow longer symbolizing not just Christ’s nativity but His presence among us to help our hearts grow brighter, too. The notion of Advent’s journey is based on Mary’s trek from Nazareth in Galilee to Ein Karem, back to Nazareth, and down to Bethlehem, before fleeing to Egypt. Similarly, Joseph’s role in the journey is to protect his family, care for his son, manage affairs as nomads, and teach us all about obedience, courage, humility, and trust in God’s message and mission, a message and mission of living life fully in supernatural grace.
In our modern times, amidst holiday shopping, bargain prices, festive parties, baking treats, keeping family traditions, finding the perfect gift, and looking out for our less fortunate sisters and brothers, we also prepare a way for the Lord. All the busyness is part of our own journey of faith. In our travails, we desire nothing more than to respond to God’s intervention in ways that imitate Mary and Joseph. We ask God to let our will conform to His will despite our many distractions; we plea that He will permit our footsteps to follow those of the Holy Family; we long for Him to allow us to give spiritual birth to things that enlighten and enliven us so we can do the same for the world around us. In this way we might realize that the coming of Christ coincides with our own coming to Jesus, i.e., standing in solidarity with God’s will: “Let it be done to me according to your words.”
It is essentially a homecoming celebration. Travelers dart around in various directions like Mary did. Travel is symbolic of search. We are searching spiritually for the way to Bethlehem so we can be witnesses to the great miracle deep in our soul. Our arrival home to be with those who welcome us, embrace us, smile in our presence, is also a “preparing of the way.” As we come to loved ones, Jesus is simultaneously coming to us, and He is inviting us to keep our eyes on our true home, heaven. He came into the past in history; He comes in the present in mystery; and He will come again at some unknown moment of the future in overwhelming majesty. On that day, we will be one with Him—our oneness in the One. If we let it, this year’s Advent journey can bring us closer to God and closer to our destiny at trail’s end. Best of all, it will bring us closer to love that gets manifest in our daily reality of encounters and experiences. We thought it is impossible, but nothing is impossible for God.