This Is Advent

This is the tender season.

The waiting season.

The longing season.

This is the breaking season.

The revealing season.

The ending season.

This is the feasting season.

The rushing season.

The giving season.

Advent is a season of tensions, of God’s present absence and absent presence…of promises made and fulfilled. This is a season when we proclaim God’s salvation for the whole of creation through Christ Jesus, his expected birth and his coming in Glory.

Advent is a symbol, a lengthy liturgical gesture, of universal salvation. By mingling the story of the Incarnation with the story of the Apocalypse, we see that the particular *is* universal. This story is a “scandal of particularity.”

This particularity of God enfleshed in Jesus, the son of Mary, is scandalous because it is an understanding of how God intends the salvation of the Cosmos. Through one being, all creation is saved. As the carol sings, “Christ was born to save.” And this coming birth shows that it has always been thus.

As God has always done, God breaks the cycles of idolatry and hubris through the Incarnation. God confounds systems of oppression, of bigotry, and hate by becoming someone who is oppressed and despised.

Thus, to oppress another is to oppress God.

To hate another is to hate God.

This, as all theology does, gets weaponized against the world that God loves. More the shame. To proclaim Christ was born to save is to say that it is the nature of Reality that all are saved. It is not to say, “adhere to our doctrine and thou shalt be saved.” Historically, we have loved the latter because it is a way of holding onto power…spiritual power and political power.

Damnation is a human invention and not a divine one. The claim that only some people are saved while others are not are an affront to God. It is a political and spiritual power grab and does not reflect the cosmic significance of the particularity of the Incarnation.

Again and again, we cast one another as the stranger or the enemy, as someone distrusted or untrustworthy. Again and again, God begs us to welcome the stranger, to love our enemies. This was true before the coming of Jesus. It is true now. It will be true in the future. The nature of God is to love…when it is easy and when it is hard.

That is the heart of salvation…to love as God loves. When it is easy and when it is hard. Salvation is often most uncomfortable for the one being saved. We are being saved when we do the hard work of love, the hard work of loving and being loved.

This is the loving season.

The believing season.

The rising season.

This is the gracious season.

The abiding season.

The desiring season.

This is the birthing season.

The expectant season.

The liberating season.

This is the season of the in-breaking of God. Love has saved you.

This is Advent.

This post is one of a series of podcasts hosted by Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, Portland, OR. You can learn more and subscribe to the podcast by going here.