Between Advent and Advent

This reflection is available as an audio podcast.

One way of thinking about our lives as Christians is that we live between advent and advent, between the first advent, the coming of Christ into the world, and the second advent when he will come again in power and great glory.

Some years ago I went to the Himalayas to trek to the Annapurna Sanctuary. It was a wonderful life-changing experience waking up at dawn after a freezing night and clambering through the snow to see these 10 giant peaks surrounding us, all over 20,000 feet high. When we got down from this extraordinary trek some days later I naturally wanted to phone my family and share my elation. There was only one problem – it was the middle of the night for them, and they might not have shared my enthusiasm for conversation. We were living in two totally different time-zones, so communication was hard, and discretion was the better part of valour. I waited and phoned later.

It’s something like that for us as Christians today. We live in two different time-zones, the world as we know it and the future Kingdom which has broken in with Jesus. And communication is often hard. How can we explain the life of the kingdom to a world which is running on different principles? On the other hand, how can we keep alive our commitment to this new world when the needs and seductions of the old world are so pressing? How can we hold the two time zones together?

It helps perhaps if we remember that we are in fact living between those two advents, the coming of Christ in the child of Bethlehem and the second coming of Christ in glory, however we interpret and understand that. But these two advents are tied together in the middle by the cross. The cross is the place where the time zones intersect. It’s the eternal ‘now’ where God’s love is poured out for us, or where we see at one moment how much God loves us and how far he’ll go for us. In other words, we live as Christians at the foot of the cross where past, present and future are held together in the loving embrace of the crucified God.

What does that mean day to day? I think it means that your past, present and future - and mine - are all in God’s hands. He came for us, he is here for us, and he will come for us. And the spiritual truth of that confidence is no-where better expressed than in the ancient prayer of St Patrick’s breastplate. It’s a good prayer at the start of the day, as you get dressed, ‘putting on’ the presence of Christ for the day ahead.

Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me.
Christ beneath me, Christ above me
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger
Christ in heart of all who love me
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

Living as we do between advent and advent the place to be is with Christ, in the present, every present.