Advent is profoundly eschatological, a reality that grows more apparent as the season reaches its climax. In these days, Holy Mother Church considers Jesus Christ as the Approaching One, who brings into the middle of time not only the spotless light of the Beginning, but also the awesome glory of the End, which He Himself is (Rev. 22:13). The faithful simultaneously remember His condescension in the flesh, look toward His final appearance in splendor, and reverence His daily advance in mystery. Therefore, as we observe the fast, it behooves us to contemplate the Lord’s mysterious interventions — past, present, and future — within the matrix of salvation history, that we might be ever ready to welcome Him.
The end lies in the beginning. God made man to bear “a kind of reflection of the Word” (St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation 1, 3). After our first parents sullied this primordial beauty, God mercifully summoned the patriarchs, drawing from their bodies “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Ex. 19:6). This kingdom and nation, Israel, God charged to imitate the divine glory (Lev. 19:2), so as to “radiate His holiness to all peoples” (St. John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor 12). However, Israel failed to observe this lofty vocation, but “went after false idols, and became false,” and though God dispatched a great host of prophets, it persisted in obstinacy (2 Kg. 17:14–15).
Then came Christ: the last Adam, the promised seed of Abraham, the glory of Israel. Who, being the very Word of God, fulfilled what He Himself had commanded; and being the very Image of God, did restore again the divine likeness; and being the very Son of God, did pay the Father what man owed but could not afford. And though He covered Himself in mildness, that He might gather Israel “as a hen gathers her brood under her wings” (Matt. 23:37), still the rulers despised Him as a blasphemer and lawbreaker (Mk. 14:63–64).
In this way, the Lord’s sojourn precipitated Israel’s decisive act of disobedience. Previously, it had persecuted the Master’s servants; now, it persecuted the Master Himself. The One Israel purported to worship as invisible, the Same it could not abide as visible, but chafing at His instruction, Him it crucified. Consequently, Israel was dispossessed of its heavenly patrimony; rather, many who were of Israel according to the flesh were dispossessed, and their birthright given to those who, sharing the faith of Abraham, were of Israel according to the spirit (Rom. 9–11). “The kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits” (Matt. 21:44).
This dispossession was plainly demonstrated when the Son of Man came in judgment upon Jerusalem, as he had foretold in apocalyptic terms (Mk. 13:1–37 and parallels; compare Is. 13:10, Is. 19:1, Zeph. 1:14–15, Ezek. 32:7–8). It is difficult to exaggerate the eschatological significance of this event. By the destruction of the temple, Christ, having already conquered death and ascended to the depths of the Father, vindicated Himself as the living God of Israel, the “Lord of all” (Acts 10:36): not distant and aloof, but ever near, ever apprehending men by His inscrutable mercy and justice. Moreover, He indicated not merely the vanishing of the old covenant, which had the temple as its center, but also the withering of the old creation, which had the temple as its summit. “The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Cor. 5:17).
Meanwhile, as He brought to naught the old, Christ was actively “making all things new” (Rev. 21:5), gaining as his own worshippers from many races, whom He joined to the faithful remnant of Israel to form a new commonwealth from the old, and one people from two (Rom. 11:5, Eph. 2:11–22). By taming the pagans and turning them from idols, He showed Himself to be the Wisdom and Power of God (1 Cor. 1:24). He who had assumed the “form of a slave” (Phil. 2:7) no longer hid His deity, but displayed it freely, not only by thrusting down the earthly Jerusalem, but by everywhere broadening the measure of the heavenly Jerusalem (Heb. 12:22). And the paternal glory that is His essentially (Heb. 1:3), this splendor He communicated by the Spirit to the saints, whereby He effected the birth of the new man, and the inauguration of the new creation, and the construction of the new temple. “Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing” (Acts 2:33).
Therefore, the “Dayspring from on high” having visited us (Luke 1:78), we can truly say that “the night is far gone, the day is at hand” (Rom. 13:12). What day? The day of the Lord, which is the judgment and transformation of all things. This day is already breaking, already casting its rays upon the world, and mingling with the darkness of the “present evil age” (Gal. 1:4), so as to both convert and obliterate that fading aeon. Wherefore, blessed Paul speaks of the “end of the ages” (1 Cor. 10:11), and blessed Peter says that “the end of all things is at hand” (1 Pet. 4:7), and blessed John says, “Children, it is the last hour” (1 Jn. 2:18). Soon, the Lord who is “at the door” (Rev. 3:20) will return, in a manner swift and surprising (1 Thess. 5:1–3).
Then that which seems so permanent — the very elements — will be as wax and parchment before flame (2 Pet. 3:10). The dead will rise: some to glory, that they might see God, and in Him all things; others to humiliation, that they might suffer enduring blindness. As for the just, they will be changed, becoming what they were not without losing what they were. “What you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain” (1 Cor. 15:37). Indeed, the whole creation will be redeemed (Rom. 8:21), along with the children of light, “so that God will be all in all” (1 Cor. 15:28).
Therefore, we “look for that blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ” (Tit. 2:13). This hope we already “taste and see” (Ps. 34:8) in the sacred mysteries, especially the Eucharist, where the Lord by His minister comes forth from the inner sanctum (Heb. 9) to share the life-giving gifts, bringing with Him the kingdom of God itself (Catechism of the Catholic Church no. 2816). Not without reason does the venerable Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom commence with the intensely eschatological proclamation, “Blessed is the kingdom of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Mark well that every Mass is an opportunity to glimpse the parousia: “Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini . . .”
As Advent hastens toward its revelatory conclusion, let those who earnestly desire to “see Him as He is” (1 Jn. 3:2) prepare themselves by reflecting constantly upon the Approaching One, that they might not be ashamed when He sees them. Says the Lord: “I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give to everyone according to his work. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last” (Rev. 22:13). Maranatha!
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