“The future ain’t what it used to be.” – Yogi Berra
Advent is a season of yearning for the fulfillment of God’s promises, ultimately at the second coming of Jesus Christ. Advent means “arrival, coming” and marks God’s coming into our midst, first through the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem and second, through his glorious return at the end of the age. During Advent we enter into Israel’s longing for the coming of the Messiah while also seeking to prepare ourselves for Christ’s glorious return. We sing “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” in expectation of the arrival of God’s kingdom reign in its fullness.
The season of Advent has its share of paradoxes. The eternal Word becoming temporal flesh. A helpless baby stirring up the murderous fear of King Herod. Foreign-born magi bringing gifts to the Jewish Messiah. The infant who lies in the manger is “a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”
During this Advent season, we’ll be exploring some of these paradoxes in a sermon series titled “The Advent Paradox.” Most of our lives are lived in the middle of paradoxical tensions. For example, we must work to survive but we also need rest. We must be responsible for our lives but often we need support. If we want to receive love, we must give love. And there are other kinds of paradoxes. The more we learn, the less we realize we know. Our greatest strength is also our greatest weakness (alternately stated as, “To the one who’s good with a hammer, everything looks like a nail”). And sometimes, you have to be “cruel to be kind.”
In The Promise of Paradox, Parker Palmer writes, “The way we respond to contradiction is pivotal to our spiritual lives.” Paradox is defined as “a statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory but in reality expresses a possible truth.” Paradox requires “both/and” rather than “either/or” thinking. Holding space for paradox is difficult. But as we’ve already suggested, the Gospel is full of paradoxes. Jesus taught “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake… will save it.”“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” “The last will be first, and the first will be last.”
Author and Christian apologist G.K. Chesterton reflected that Christianity is most hospitable to paradox, welcoming as it does the pessimistic (“All have sinned”) and the optimistic (“God so loved the world”), the bold (“Go and make disciples of all nations”) and the meek (“all who humble themselves will be exalted”). During this season of Advent, then, we’ll be seeking to embrace the paradoxes of the season, especially as we see them embodied in the coming of Jesus in humility into the world.
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