DAY 25: The First Coming and the Second Coming
“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also” – John 14: 1-3 ESV
My Thoughts:
Advent is a celebration of comings—of Christ’s comings. For the past 4 weeks we’ve been anticipating and celebrating the story of Christ’s First Coming. In this story we’ve explored what we are calling the First Act of God’s Story. This act includes the first two major plot movements—the events of Creation (the beginning) and the Fall (the conflict). We’ve seen God take the initiative in Creation, bringing the universe into existence. And in the Fall, Adam and Eve chose to rebel against God and thereby they reordered the universe’s operation. And God followed their choice with a choice and promise of His own, to redeem sinful humanity.
This choice and promise was brought to fruition with the start of the Second Act of God’s Story, which began with Christ’s First Coming. This act includes the events of Redemption (the climax) and includes and points to the events of the Restoration (the ending). In the events of Redemption, Christ’s coming redeemed us and began the process of restoring this world and people to goodness—though any given person can choose to reject that redemption. Since Christ’s First Coming and the beginning of the Second Act, all believers now live a redeemed life as a new creation—because we have been purchased by Christ through His salvific act on the Cross.
But that’s not where the story ends. God has built into us a sense of and yearning for an ending. The so-called ‘happily ever after.’ We all have an innate sense of scope, a sense of the basic formula for a story—meaning that we all believe stories must have a beginning, middle and end. Any story in which there is no final resolution or fit ending leaves us unhappy and unsatisfied. Think of the movies that end abruptly and leave us hanging—such as All is Lost (2013) starring Robert Redford, The Grey (2012) starring Liam Neeson, Easy Rider (1969) starring Peter Fonda, No Country For Old Men (2007) starring Javier Bardem, or even the TV show The Sopranos.
We’ve already discussed the first three turning points of the Christian Story: Creation, Fall, and Redemption. Now we must speak of the final plot point: Restoration. In God’s Story, as told in the Bible, creation (humanity) starts good, becomes corrupt, is redeemed, and finally restored. So, in Christ’s Second Coming all of the earlier parts of the story are brought to a final conclusion. In the events of Restoration, God completes what He started when He redeemed us morally and spiritually in our earthly life. We are transformed into sinless children of God in deathless bodies to live with Him forever.
Great Acts by Jeff Seevers
And it’s true that the line between the events of the Redemption phase and the Restoration phase overlap. For, after Christ’s First Coming, in the Redemption phase we are partially restored to our original and unfallen condition at Creation, because our moral and spiritual nature is continually being transformed to be more Christ-like. And in the Restoration phase, this restoration continues and is completed—of our moral and spiritual nature, and eventually our physical nature as well. In the final state of restoration and glorification, we will experience the physical transformation that occurs in the bodily resurrection that gives us a body like Christ’s ascended one. And so our physical nature will match our totally transformed character—it will be the completion of the glorification that was begun in the sanctification process. “But we are citizens of heaven and are eagerly waiting for our Savior to come from there. Our Lord Jesus Christ has power over everything, and he will make these poor bodies of ours like his own glorious body” (Phil 3:20-21 CEV).
Christ landed once before in disguise in human form in this world, in this enemy-occupied territory. And He started a great campaign against Satan and the evil and brokenness of this world. It is also true that at some future unspecified date Jesus is going to come again and land in force to defeat His enemies, openly and directly, rather than in disguise. When this invasion happens, it will be the end of the world. At that point it will be too late to choose sides. Because when the author walks on the stage, the play is over. But it will be such a splendid ending for believers that we will be totally in awe!
Prayer (from the Book of Common Prayer):
ALMIGHTY God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness,
and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life,
in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility;
that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty
to judge both the quick and the dead,
we may rise to the life immortal,
through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, now and ever.
Amen.
