James Alison describes Advent as “the cycle by which God breaks through the clutter of our lives to announce to us that the Presence is very near, erupting into our midst, hauling us out of our myths, our half-truths and the ways we have settled for what is religious rather than what is holy, alive and real.” This from an article a good friend dropped on my desk yesterday entitled “Living by the Word: Punctured,” from an Advent series Alison is writing for The Christian Century (11/13/07).
Alison goes on to suggest that becoming attentive to the presence of Christ begins with the assumption that such a process “is going to be difficult—that we are half asleep, our ears dulled and the voice of the One who loves us is too radiantly bright to be picked up on our defensive antennae.”
The bottom line for Alison regarding the prophetic nature of Advent is that it necessarily involves the loss of our own fantasies about the nature of its fulfillment. He calls this fulfillment a “punctured fulfillment.” In other words, Advent is not only the promise of Christ’s presence that awakens us to our own desires, it is also the un-fulfillment or failure of our fantasies about what the presence of Christ will look like. Such is the mystery of incarnation.
Advent is the journey toward incarnation and it is a disruptive journey, to be sure. It is only when we take the stained glass off the Christmas story that our myths, half-truths and religiosity gives way to what is holy, alive and real. Not too many years ago, my own Advent journey yielded this vision of the incarnation:
Art by Damien Hirst
Kris Rocke
Serves as director of Center for Transforming Mission
Bumps into Reality by accident, most of the time
Heard God laugh once
Comments (1)
When Hans Urs Von Balthasar speaks of Gregory of Nyssa's theology of Advent in "Presence and Thought," he describes the presence of Christ as a continual arrival. We are always in preparation for the coming of the Christ because he is continually manifests himself in our lives. If, in the midst of serving some of the least you mention above, we can foster a sense of anticipation for the daily revelation of the presence of Christ, maybe that sense of hope will begin to take root. We just need to remind ourselves that the incarnation is always manifesting itself in different ways so we don't lose heart, we just have to keep our eyes open...
Posted by Tim Bomgardner | December 18, 2007 9:34 PM
Posted on December 18, 2007 21:34