First Sunday of Advent: Hope

 Where is the promise of his coming? (Second Peter 3:4)

Thanksgiving brings an end to our Ordinary Days; after which we now return to Advent, the season that begins our liturgical calendar, when the church awaits “the promise of his coming.” Or, the promise of his advent—that Christ is coming and will arrive for sure. If the second coming, when Christ returns to bring forth “new heavens, and a new earth” (2Pt 3:13), has not yet arrived, then we retell the story of God the Son’s first coming, when “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (Jn 1:14).

Without Christ’s first coming, when he arrived “born of a woman” (Ga 4:4), we would not know of his Promise: “I will come again and take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also” (Jn 14:4). It looks like we will have to wait some before Christ returns. That’s all right. “The Lord is not slow about his promise,” Peter encourages us, “but patient, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come…” (2Pt 3:9-10).

Meanwhile, we return to the beginning that we might “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen” (2Pt 3:18).