The Coming One
Sister Elise Saggau, OSF
Getting in touch with the past helps us to prepare for what is yet to come. Isn’t it true that much of what we expect from people is based on what we already know about them? When the Hebrew prophets spoke about the future of Israel, they always did so with an eye on the great works God had already done. The people could look forward with confidence because the past was an amazing testimony to God’s actions—God had saved them from Egypt, led them through the sea, brought them safely through the desert, gave them a land flowing with milk and honey, rescued them from exile. These memories filled the people with awe and gave them confidence in God’s continued care for them.
The New Testament writings also link past with future. During a time of oppression by the Roman Empire, the one who had been promised appeared—an astonishing human being, Jesus of Nazareth. He walked among us—a preacher, teacher, and healer. He suffered and died for his courageous efforts to bring a new understanding of God. Then he rose from the dead and continues to be with us in ways beyond our imagining. The Christ moves with us from past to present.
During Advent and Christmas, we remember and contemplate how Christ came in human flesh. We look back in reflective meditation, conserving our memories of Christ’s historical birth, his life among us, and his resurrection from the dead. And these memories help us determine how we are progressing now in the life that is constantly unfolding in this challenging world.
As we wait for Christ to enter our lives in new ways, we learn more and more about him, about God, and about ourselves. We understand ever better that God is the One who has already come, is even now fully with us, and yet, in some mysterious way, is also the One who is still on the way to us. As Advent progresses, we hear more and more about the beauty and splendor of the One who is forever going ahead of us into the future.
The much-dramatized infancy narratives in Matthew and Luke depict Jesus’ life before his public ministry. In them, we find people waiting. Mary, a seemingly ordinary young woman, waits for the expected Messiah, trying to imagine the dramatic transformation that lies ahead for God’s chosen people. Never, however, does she dream that she will be chosen to play a role in that drama. Then she has a vision of an angel; she hears an invitation. Remarkably, she says yes. And suddenly she is waiting in a whole new way. There is a new promise taking shape in her very womb. Elizabeth, her cousin, is also waiting—waiting for a child that she thought could never be. This child is coming, but is also already present—leaping in her womb in the presence of the promised One. Joseph, too, is waiting and wondering. A man of faith, he has willingly submitted to the mystery and has promised to support what he cannot understand.
And yet, what all these people are waiting for is already present, already acting, already transforming them. He is on the way, and yet he is already in their midst—changing their hearts, changing their lives, changing their plans for the future. Mary and Joseph received a promise that gave them courage and empowered them to wait. What they were promised was already at work within them—a seed that had started to grow. As we contemplate this story and retell it year after year, each of us comes to understand that, in our own waiting, what we are waiting for has already begun. Waiting is never a movement from nothing to something. It is always a movement from something to something more. That is virtually a definition of promise. It is certainly a definition of Advent—a movement from something to something more. So, we wait in hope.
Source: http://www.allsaintspress.com/ASP/18-351.pdf. Jesus the Coming One: Through Advent with Pope Francis and Henri J. M. Nouwen, ed. Steve Mueller.
