Alumni Article: Advent 2022

Read the latest Alumni article for this Advent

2 The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned […] 6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 7Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. Isaiah 9

9 The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. John 1

Advent is a time of preparation for the arrival of the king of righteousness and peace. The prophet Isaiah talks about the arrival of a great light for those in darkness, and the Gospel of John tells us that Christ is the light of the world, synonymous with life. Christ, the ‘light of life’, is the way to the Father, and the promise we have is that those who receive the light are taken by Jesus on the journey home.

Imagine standing at Gloucester Road station, waiting for the arrival of the tube to take you up to King’s Cross. As you wait, you watch the sign telling you the minutes remaining and stare expectantly into the dark tunnel, waiting for those two lights to appear. Finally the train draws up, the doors open, and you mind the gap and jump in. The whole point of waiting in the gloomy underground passage is to get on board the tube. You don’t just watch the train come and go; you enter in, to be taken on a journey towards your destination.

And so it is with the arrival of Christ. What we experience in Christmas is also a people waiting, a-coming and a-going. To be precise, this move is not a linear, but a circular one. It’s what theologians have called recapitulation: a simultaneous downward and upward move – an outgoing from the Father and a return to him. In the incarnation we witness God’s humble condescension, a kenotic act of self-sacrificial love, as God in Christ leaves the glory of heaven, assumes our human nature, and comes to us into our sinful world. Through his life, death, resurrection and finally ascension, he takes our assumed nature and glorifies it, bringing it back to the Father as a holy offering. And through the Son’s outpouring of the Spirit, we are invited to participate in the upward movement of the Son of Man.

How is this possible? Well as with the tube, so too with God’s Messiah – we need to enter through the door, his body, to access the journey to life eternal. Through God’s grace – through his sacraments. Through Baptism and through the Eucharist we are invited to get on board and receive the light of life the prophet Isaiah pointed to. In Baptism, we are invited on the journey of dying and rising in Christ, and then in the Eucharist we are nourished on this upward journey by the Manna from Heaven.

What we experience in Christmas is also a people waiting, a-coming and a-going. To be precise, this move is not a linear, but a circular one. It’s what theologians have called recapitulation: a simultaneous downward and upward move – an outgoing from the Father and a return to him

Because the whole point of God’s selfless condescension, the entire reason he left his glory and stooped down to us to meet us first in the manger and later on the cross, was that we receive him as king and personal saviour. And we receive him by entering into the new Christ-reality of eternal life, our way home. Just as we need to enter the underground train and not just watch it pass by, so too do we need to receive him regularly. As Jesus himself reminds us in John 6: “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” And when we do receive him and become children of God, we are also joined by fellow travellers, and knitted into a community – God’s holy family.

But before the cross comes the cattle stall, the eternal Logos taking on the frailty of human flesh. And so in Advent, as we stand at the cosmic station, we wait and prepare ourselves for the arrival of the helpless babe – helpless in the flesh, but self-elected and almighty in eternity. We prepare ourselves to receive this selfless love and be consumed and transformed by it, by Him, so that we too can go out to bless the world, as he first blessed us.