Religion in Daily Life

By the Rev. Edward Chinn, D.Min.

Rector, All Saints' Church

Sunday, 1 December 2002

http://www.allsaintstorresdale.org

The church season of Advent makes three affirmations about Jesus of Nazareth. The Advent season includes the four Sundays before Christmas. This year it began on December 1. The word "Advent" comes from the Latin adventus, meaning "coming" or "arrival." Let us think about the affirmations of the Advent season. To affirm something is to declare something to be true. An affirmation is a positive statement of truth.

The Advent season affirms that Jesus came. Jesus as the Christ is mentioned outside the New Testament. The first-century Roman historian Tacitus spoke of "Christus" who "suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius." Another Roman historian was Suetonius. He was the secretary to the Emperor Hadrian (117-138). Suetonius referred to disturbances in the Jewish quarter of Rome over a man named "Chrestus." Josephus, the first-century Jewish historian (born in Jerusalem in A.D. 37), wrote that the Sanhedrin had brought before it "James, the brother of Jesus who was called the Christ" (Antiquities, 20, 9, 1).

The Advent season affirms that Jesus comes. Nearly half a century ago a London pastor, Leonard Griffith, wrote about Paul, the first-century Jewish Pharisee who became a follower of Jesus as the Christ: "He speaks of Christ not in the past tense but in the present, not as one who came but as one who comes, a spiritual indwelling presence who encounters him on the Damascus Road, who reveals to him the truth about God . . . and supplies him with grace and strength." In a letter he wrote, Paul said: "I did not receive [the Gospel message] from any man . . . It was Jesus Christ himself who revealed it to me" (Galatians 1:12). Christ comes to us now in every human being, for Jesus has "drawn all people to himself . . . all Creation is now identified with the glorified Body of Christ" (Thomas Cahill, Desire of the Everlasting Hills, p. 146).

The Advent season affirms that Jesus will come again. The last book in the collection of Christian writings we call "The New Testament" ends with these words: "Come, Lord Jesus." The early Christians used to paint a cross on the eastern wall of their homes and their meeting places. The cross was not out there to remind them of the past sufferings of Christ. Rather, it was placed on that particular wall to mark the East from which Christ was expected to come again in the future. To this day Christians put a cross at the East end of their churches, even though some of them have forgotten its future reference.