At the year’s end, God comes – Christ is coming – as a baby at Christmas, coming into the dailiness of our lives, and at the end of time. It may seem odd at the beginning of Advent to hear Jesus speak of the second coming, but when Jesus says we’re to watch and stay awake, he doesn’t say it to play on our fears. Instead, he calls us to be alert to the signs of God’s presence in our lives, encouraging us to have faith in God who is present in the person with whom we are talking, and in the smallest act, though we may only come to understand this sometime later.

As we grow in our faith, his coming ‘with power and glory’ will seem less a fearful prospect than the moment of our liberation. 

One way we can prepare for it, says Jesus, is not to let the cares of life overwhelm us. But what might we say to the woman with a life-threatening illness who said recently: ‘My mental health is an ongoing battle because I live in the unknown. I’m scared every time I get sick. I live in fear.’

Her words speak to us whenever we find ourselves adrift in the unknown, where nothing makes sense anymore and everything we’ve done to secure our future is called into question. Often our fears are disabling, and we wonder where we might find help to face them. This is what Jesus is offering us in the gospel, the gift of himself; and receiving it, in turn we’re asked to give it away. It’s what the vivid, apocalyptic language of the gospel seeks to do: to help us be more aware of God’s presence in our lives.

As we gradually grow into this awareness through prayer and our being with one another, when God’s kingdom is revealed in its glory at the end of time, we will find ourselves able to stand with confidence before the Son of Man and we will be with God forever.  This is the liberation of which Jesus speaks.

In the first reading, while the false prophets speak only of doom and gloom in the face of exile and what seems like impending disaster, Jeremiah re-assures the people that God will remain true to his promises and send them a ruler of honesty and integrity. Enabled to face what is happening, alert to God’s presence, the prophet discovers there, not simply an end, but a new beginning.

In the second reading, Paul describes the life we’re called to live in preparation for Christ’s coming again. Whatever our differences, loving one another in a community of hope reveals the life of Christ to us and to ‘the whole human race.’

Whenever this happens, God’s kingdom is made real on earth, as in heaven. It’s the coming of the kingdom both now and in the future: it’s the promise of Advent. 

Damian Coleridge

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