We are in the second week of the advent season, the season in which we remember first advent of Christ and anxiously anticipate his second coming. It is one of my favorite times of year, fraught with both anxiety and celebration, with the darkness of winter nights and the light of up to four small candles around a little wreath during devotions to God. But that is another subject...
Today I am wondering about the second advent of our Lord. Not his return, today I have decided that I think the "second coming" is actually the third advent of our Lord. Let me briefly explain and then petition your thoughts and insights. The church is the body of Christ. Therefore, the coming presence of the church in the world should be the second advent of Christ. We are to "image" God in the world. How? "By embodying in [our] communal life the virtues that are formed by this God's story" (Walsh and Keesmaat, 174).
I am curious, then, what difference do we make when we come into the world? Do things in the world change because of the second advent of God in the church, the Body of Christ? How might our reflection on the church as the body of Christ transform the way we view ourselves during this season and throughout the year?
I will hopefully jot down some of my thoughts later this week, but let me know what you think.
3 comments:
Hey guys!
Miss you guys... Are you coming to Tejas for the holidays???
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Leah
Interesting thought, Eric. I'd never thought of it that way.
I think we need to see that Jesus 1)made a difference in peoples' lives, and 2)was not accepted by many during his physical stay here. If we are like Jesus, both things will be true of us. I think the church IS making a difference, and historically has been the greatest change agent through the centuries that the world has seen. Also, the church is not accepted by many, and it will always be so.
Now, how do I rate personally in each of those categories? That will take some thought, and is worth thinking about.
Thanks for your post, Don.
I hope and pray that we will all continue to think and reflect on the way we (as the church, the Body of Christ) incarnate Christ in the world. Yesterday was the last meeting of my class on Paul's Prison Letters. I asked the class to chat with me a little bit about the ways in which Paul seems to envision these churches engaging the world (Roman Empire, Hellenistic Judaism, mystery religions, etc.) around them. We talked for a while, then I asked them: What would Paul write to us about living out or lives of faith today? They sat for a while in stunned silence, struggling to make the hermeneutical jump required to answer that question. Finally someone spoke up, though sheepishly. We spent the next fifteen minutes engaged in conversation about how difficult the call of discipleship is. We talked about how many of our churches have sanitized and neutered the call of God in Christ, in order to make it palatable to people. Discipleship is hard work and the most faithful thing we can do is to really struggle with the kinds of questions you are asking and try our best, through the empowerment of the Spirit, to embody both the questions and the answers in the world.
Thanks for all that you do to live the life of Christ in your own flesh.
Grace and peace, erm
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