By PAUL KRAUSE
It is easy to forget that Advent is not actually about the Incarnation of Jesus Christ but about Christ’s Second Coming and the restoration of God’s family under the King of Kings. One can be forgiven in thinking Advent is about the simple birth of Christ: mangers and songs of Bethlehem abound in lawns and in the air and Scripture readings are generally from the passages dealing with the Annunciation and birth of Christ.
Adventus, in Latin, is the equivalent of the Greek word Parousia, the term St. Paul uses to describe Christ’s triumphant return. Advent, then, is actually meant to draw our hearts and minds to receiving Christ into our homes when He comes again. For cultural reasons the imagery of receiving Christ is drawn from the Incarnation and Infancy Narrative but this is, in fact, a good image to think about: What is more precious than to welcome in arms of love an innocent babe?
This permits us to reflect on the restoration of Christmas in the aftermath of COVID. The pandemic and the Herodian-like response of our leaders marred the past couple of Christmases for many. For the first time in a long time many people didn’t celebrate Christmas with their family or didn’t attend Mass with churches shuttered or operating at limited capacity over the past two years.
The return of a Christmas celebration with family prefigures the salvific plan of God. Christmas is a type of Second Coming. The return of Christ is an in-gathering of the family in perfect love and communion with the Source of Love itself. During Christmas, family is reunified under the spirit of love and thanksgiving in a recognition of what truly matters in life; it is also a holiday of immense hope and longing like our hope and longing for the return of Christ.
The best of our Christmas traditions, from songs to food, speak to the theological heart of the holiday. The hymns of John Wesley, for instance, which we know from Christmas caroling, sing of the love and glory of God united with us and the cosmos of creation.
Those great lyrics sound triumphantly: “Hark! the herald angels sing, glory to the newborn king. Peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinner reconciled. Joyful all ye nations rise. Join the triumph of the skies, with angelic host proclaim: Christ is born in Bethlehem.”
Heaven and Earth, God and man (and angel), are all united in joyful song to Christ the Savior. St. Augustine even famously described the work of creation and salvation as one united choral song.
Another one of the great songs we all know is O Come, O Come, Emmanuel. Originally a medieval hymn, its translation into English and proliferation through the English hymnal tradition has made it a pillar of Christmas caroling and church songs. Those lyrics speak of the need of our filial restoration under God.
You know the lyrics: “O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel, that mourns in lonely exile here, until the Son of God appear. Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel. O come, thou rod of Jesse, free thine own from Satan’s tyranny; from depths of Hell thy people save, and give them victory o’er the grave. Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel Shall come to thee, O Israel.”
What these songs reveal to us is the joy found in God, the “victory o’er the grave,” and that death is not the end of life. Israel, the family of God, will be united in love with the God who is Love beyond the grave. Despite the darkness of midnight cold, Christmas is a time for warmth and love, life and joy, because God shall return and the family of God is going to brought into the fullness of the heart of love in Paradise in that Second Coming which Advent points our hearts and minds toward.
When you consider the famous songs of Christmas and how we ourselves conduct Christmas with our families, many of whom will travel hundreds of miles to be together for a few days (like the wise men in coming to celebrate the birth of Christ), we are acting out the Second Coming. We do not live in a dark and dying world but one teeming and moving with life and love which gives thanks to God for that life and love. Instead of being alone and isolated, we are brought together in a celebration of love that is made possible through the family.
The consumerism of Christmas is the false counterfeit of the holiday since it is meant to be a soothing distraction of the world’s problems and caters to the lonely and alienated. The real Christmas calls us to one true reality we are made for: love. In that love we also learn the integral role of the family in God’s plan for us. The true spirit of Christmas is an in-gathering of the family and a manifestation of love, principally through the family.
The most memorable Christmases we can all think of are those where we were surrounded by our family members: those whom we see regularly and those whom we may see irregularly, but Christmas tends to be the one time we are all together as one in love and cheer. We look forward to Christmas as we are meant to look forward to the return of Christ. It is the one great communal, family, holiday that we look forward to because we are all coming together in joyful celebration of love.
That looking forward to a joyful celebration of Love returning is the promise of the Second Coming. While Christmas imagery makes us think of Jesus’s First Coming, it is, in fact, pointing us to his final coming when Christ will gather the eternal family together in love. And our own celebration of Christmas is a perfect embodiment and foreshadowing of that reality of hope and love coming again.
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