An Advent Influenced Theology

An Advent Influenced Theology

How Advent season might transform how we consider theology?

Written by Dan McDonald

 

            The seasons of the Christian calendar are not meant to be experienced as if the realities of the faith they highlighted were experiences to be separated from the other experiences in a Christian year. If we highlight the reality of the incarnation (of God becoming man in Christ Jesus) in our observance of Christmas we don’t limit our appreciation of the incarnation to that one season but it becomes integrated with everything else we highlight in other seasons of the Christian year. The same is true for our observation of Advent. The season of Advent highlights for us that we are a people who wait. We are waiting and preparing for Christmas but also we wait for the day of Christ when he who began a good work in us will bring it to full and final perfection.

The season of Advent teaches us that we do not wait lazily. Instead we wait like those who heard John the Forerunner proclaiming repentance on the banks of the Jordan in the months prior to Christ’s being baptized in the Jordan River. We mark what we hear, we reflect over our lives and we prepare for the arrival of our Lord and Savior with the deeds of righteousness done by faith. Advent teaches us to wait for the day of Christ by living in faith, with hope, and in love of God and neighbor, brother and sister, and even our enemy.

Those who do not live in accord with a Christian calendar often fear that those who do simply divide the Christian life into seasons when we do different good works as if the Christian life is a life of passing through an obstacle course where every different event needs to be done to get through to the other side. Sometimes those of us living in relationship to the church calendar have little appreciation that the seasons highlighted in the yearly Christian calendar cycle of seasons are put together to point to the one true life to be discovered by the disciple or follower of Jesus Christ.

I like to think of my journey through the season of advent in this following way:

 

We Pass through the seasonal journey of Advent

so Advent will dwell in us through the year.

 

            Advent is the season in which our Christian characteristic of being people who are waiting for something is highlighted. Waiting is not something we do only in Advent. Waiting is something we have brought to our attention in the season of Advent so that we will face life throughout the year and in our varied seasons of life by waiting in a way appropriate to the Gospel promises. We wait with deeds of faith, repentance, lives characterized by hope and joy, and by loving God and neighbor. As the final days of Advent are taking shape in me this year I have begun to think of how Advent this year is teaching me about how I should do theology. For some of us the way we do theology can be transformed by understanding that how we do theology should reflect clearly that we are a people who are waiting for the completion of what has been begun. I think St. Paul described a truth we need to incorporate into the fabric of our theological matrix. He tells us:

 

                        We know in part but are fully known.

 

            I have not applied this truth near enough to how I do theology as someone who is waiting for more and waiting for that day when what has only now been begun will be made perfect and complete. But surely once we know ourselves to be a people who are waiting it should transform how we study, contemplate, discuss, and express theological perspectives with one another.

            First we should be encouraged that it is likely not our Christian responsibility to untie every troublesome Gordian knot of the Scriptures. St. Peter described how there are things difficult to understand in St. Paul’s writings as well as the rest of the Scriptures. Most of us probably have Scriptural passages we struggle with as we seek understanding. While I am not trying to encourage lazy thinking towards the Scriptures there should be no shame in our acknowledging that there are things we haven’t yet come to understand. We know in part, especially if we think we know in full.

            Secondly because we are people waiting for Christ to complete us, we should desire whenever possible to encourage others as we move towards the day of Christ. While it is true that none of us know all things, it is also likely true that what each of us understands differs from what others around us understand. The Apostle Paul encouraged one of the pastors to whom he wrote, to bear patiently with those who opposed themselves in the faith. Perhaps we are among those having an obstinate streak that hinders us from understanding, or perhaps our minds don't easily grasp the connections between the dots of the teaching of Scripture. Those difficulties do not disqualify one from being fully known by the God who has set his love upon us in Christ. As much as we are involved in encouraging one another whether as ministers or as laymen or in dealing with our own souls - we should remember patience. Perhaps we need to remind ourselves that the only one who needs to count the number of his sheep is the shepherd. As one of the sheep I am set free from counting the numbers in the flock. There is a good shepherd over us who brings us to a safe and secure fold for the night and counting the flock, sees if there are any missing and he then goes out and finds and brings home the straggler. He does the counting. He has given to me the work of loving those around me. We are people waiting and making a journey towards a day on the other side of our River Jordan. We are traveling together and our concern is simply to encourage those this moment traveling with us to continue until the wait is over and the good that has been begun is made complete.

            Thirdly this Christian life is not primarily about how much or what we know; for our security rests not in ourselves but in how God has fully known us and has set his love upon us in Christ. We know in part but are fully known. Our security in the faith is not our having perfect doctrine to lump brandish like a weapon in an argument, but to realize that God has demonstrated his love toward us and to encourage others with this good news. We rest assured knowing only in part but being known and loved to completion.

            I hope this makes sense to you and you can begin to see how you think about the faith transformed by the realization that we are meant to have a traveler’s theology that is a work in progress waiting upon God for explanations and insights and having at times simply to be confident in knowing that although we know only in part, he has taken the Divine initiative to know us fully and to be committed to us without reserve. That is enough for those of us who are the sheep of God’s pasture to know we are well cared for, as we wait for the coming day. Our happiness and security is not in having it all figured out, but in knowing that the shepherd who protects and guides us has it figured out and will lead us in the pastures of refreshment as well as in the valleys of difficulty until the whole flock of us will be brought safely to our haven in the day for which we make our life journey.