Advent’s Darkening

The most impossible thing about the uncertainty of Advent is that Christ himself inhabits it with us. The glory of our unknowing is that it is shared by Christ. He participates in it, embraces it, and redeems it. Jesus enters into all the uncertainty of what it means to be human, to the degree that Scripture, which is truthful from top to bottom, can say the Son does not know. As one ancient preacher puts it, Jesus put even himself under a cloud, so we ought not to be embarrassed to say that we do not know some mystery of God, for we read that Christ did not blush to confess his ignorance. 

In Christ’s grace, may we find that same freedom, released from the worry of having to know. Some of us have questions about timing: How long, O Lord? We have questions about our security: Will you remember me when you come into your kingdom? We have questions about our loved ones: Can you heal my son, who is close to death? Christ takes these questions upon himself, bears them in his own body, and offers them in his one sacrifice for the life of the world.

Advent’s true mystery is that Christ is the one who accompanies us even as he is the one whom we are waiting for. In this anxious middle, he is the first and the last, who was and is and is to come. As we stand in the darkness, we find ourselves beside the one whom it has not overcome.

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From a sermon on Matthew 24:36–44.