Greetings Glen Mar,

I pray you had a wonderful week and are all ready for Christmas! Alert: only six shopping days left! Remember that even if you don’t have every gift purchased (let alone wrapped), that is not what it truly means to be “ready” for Christmas. Advent is all about getting ready for Christ to come, and if you recall, Christ’s coming can be anticipated in three movements: history, mystery, and majesty. We have already discussed the first two; now we must contemplate Christ’s coming in majesty. What exactly do we mean?

Let us look to the 24th chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, where Jesus says:

“Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And then all the peoples of the earth will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.”

Now this is a picture of Christ’s coming! The Son of man, as Jesus calls himself, coming on the clouds, a recall to Daniel 7:13-14. This is an apocalyptic image that conveys something royal, majestic, and glorious in how Christ will return. Jesus’ referencing of that text and image is an allusion to his coming back, and it’s glorious! Marvelous! Amazing! And, as we have heard multiple times recently, in Matthew 25, we get a picture of Christ the King in his authority, judging the living and the dead for how they have lived their lives. There it is. Christ will come again in majesty, and we had best be prepared for his return.

It is comforting to reflect on Christ’s coming in history, born as an infant in a manger. It is meaningful to encounter Christ in mystery, meeting us daily in the present. But Christ’s coming in majesty humbles us. What will it be like? When will it happen? What signs should we look for? How can we possibly be ready?

Countless books have been written, and sermons preached on these questions. Yet the answer comes down to two essential truths:

1. We can’t know the details of Christ’s return.

2. We prepare by following Jesus now.

The truth is, we do not know what it will be like when Christ returns, or what it will look like, exactly, and we certainly don’t know when it will happen! Many have guessed and judged the signs like those Jesus gives in Matthew 24, but no one has been right yet! The truth is, we can’t know, and we aren’t supposed to be able to know when or how it will happen. Only God the Father knows, and Jesus says as much. The key is that we must rest in Jesus and know that we don’t need to know. We rest in Jesus or remain in Jesus by following Jesus as we wait for him to return, whenever that is. If we stay ready, we don’t need to get ready.

And so following Jesus is the real key to getting ready for Christ’s coming on Christmas. That’s how we “prepare the way” for his return. This surely applies to history and mystery, but especially to his coming in majesty at the end of time. If we are following Jesus, we can rest assured that we, by the grace of God, are ready for whenever he returns.

As Brennan Manning beautifully writes,

“Christmas arouses longing for the Parousia, the Second Coming. It awakens hope in that heralded upheaval, that upcoming earthquake that makes radical discipleship possible, ushering in, as it will, the ultimate fulfilment of human history.”

Indeed, Christmas is all about Christ’s coming, the great hinge of human history.

Are you ready? He’s coming soon!

Yours in Christ,

Pastor Chris