November 27, 2022: First Sunday of Advent
“The Faithfulness of Christ’s Coming”
Isaiah 2: 1-5/Psalm 122/Romans 13: 10-14/Matthew 24: 37-44
Bishop Ariel P. Santos
We start the New Liturgical Year with hope, a joyful hope, an anticipation. It is not being anxious or fearful for the Gospel is good news of faith and joy.
Psalm 25 says that none of those who wait for God will be ashamed because our God is faithful. Our blessed hope is the appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. (Titus 2:3). The Lord says that He will always be with us. He is with us but in the spiritual realm. We can’t see this because there is a veil that causes us not to see Him. He is in a different dimension. Our hope is to see Him in the flesh. Our blessed hope is not to die, leave earth and go and stay in heaven and be a spirit forever.
After this life, after we take our last breath, we will be in heaven. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. This is good news but this is not THE good news. One day, we will be resurrected. One day, our soul, which is in heaven, and our body, which is in the grave, will be reconciled. We will be made whole again.
Life after death is an interim, a temporary state. Philippians 3:20 says that our citizenship is in heaven, and from there we await our Savior Jesus Christ. When we die and get to heaven, that is not our final destination. We will wait for the appearance of the Lord.
St. Paul says in 2Corinthians 5:1-4, “We know that when we die and leave these bodies, we will have wonderful new bodies in heaven, homes that will be ours forever, made for us by God Himself and not by human hands. How weary we grow of our present bodies. That’s why we look forward eagerly to the day when we shall have heavenly bodies that we shall put on like new clothes. For we shall not be merely spirits without bodies.” One day, there will be a resurrection of the dead. “These earthly bodies make us groan, but we wouldn’t like to think of dying and having no bodies at all. We want to slip into our new bodies so that these dying bodies will, as it were, be swallowed up by everlasting life?” While we are on earth, our mortal bodies are not in peace. This is why St. Paul says to the Romans, “Wretched man that I am, who’ll save me from this dying body?”
In 1 Cor 15:51-53, St. Paul also says, “Behold, I tell you a mystery … we’ll all be changed … in the twinkling of an eye. The trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable. For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality.” We are now dressed with those that can perish, but one day, we will put on incorruptibility, immortality and imperishability. One day, we will not die anymore.
Individually, we die and we will be in the presence of the Lord but it is not yet the fullness. Our loved ones that went ahead of us are present in the Lord, but not yet resurrected. The principle in the kingdom of God is that each is beautiful. In Creation, in the first six days, all that God created was good. He created man in His image and likeness and it was good. After six days, God rested and looked at the whole and He said, “It was very good.” An individual is good; but the whole of mankind is very good. As a whole, all work together and are in unity and this will be very good. It is far better than our individual good.
In Hebrews11:40, after the whole chapter talked about the heroes of the faith and the blessings and testimony that they had individually, it says that God had provided something better for ALL of us, so that apart from us, they (the faithful departed) would not be made perfect. No one can obtain fullness of promise, hope individually, but corporately. Think as a Body, not as individual. We will be a new creation, not new individual creatures. We will be a restored material creation. We will have resurrected bodies. Our bodies will not be replaced but will be repaired and restored.
When the disciples touched Jesus, it was the same body of Jesus Christ that was resurrected. His body had scars and it was the same body that was glorified. God does not discard but forgives and restores. Our citizenship is in heaven, and from there, we await our Savior. Philippians 3:21 says, “We await our Savior Jesus Christ who will transform our wretched bodies into the likeness of His glorious body.”
Jesus is the first born because He was the first; now He has fullness of life and we will follow Him. This is our blessed hope and we look for the life of the world to come, but the life of the world to come is the life after life after death.
The life after death is that when we die, we will go to heaven, but this is not the fullness. After this life after death, there is still life. A Greek philosopher Plato taught that our spirits are imprisoned in our bodies. Our spirits will be freed if we die; our true freedom is being released from this prison, our body. This is not far from the heresy or the wrong teaching of some of the early Christians. It says that our bodies, our flesh is bad such that our spirits are the one that is only good. No, we were created body and spirit and they are one. This flesh is not bad; it is good. God created it good and so precious in the eyes of God that when our bodies was dying because of sin, Jesus became flesh and He gave life to the mortal man. We, like Jesus, will all be resurrected, and there will be no more sickness, sin, and death. . We will no longer be mortal bodies, but immortal. In the life of the world to come, there will no longer be war, conflicts, sickness, and people tearing each other down.
It is blessed to live; not to die. Our life is a gift from God and this includes our being human. God created human beings, not angels nor spirits, living in a material realm. If our destiny is to be spirits in heaven, why is there the incarnation? Why is there Christmas? What is the point of what Revelation says, “Behold the Tabernacle of God is among human beings.”
Jesus used to be a spirit; and from all eternity, at a certain point of God’s creation, the Godhead decided that Jesus Christ become flesh. From that point on, Jesus never changed. He is forever and ever like you and I. This is how God loves us; we are the same with Him forever. This is how He loves the flesh as Jesus became flesh. He cannot revert back to being what He was before. The Tabernacle of God is among men.
What is the point of the resurrection of Christ’s body? This is so we can spend life of world to come in our physical bodies. The Creed says, “We look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.” We will spend the life of the world to come after being resurrected.
Is there no heaven? There is, but better than we think. Heaven is coming here and it will make the very good material creation even better because right now, sin is present among us and it results in death. When the kingdom of God comes, and the will of the Lord be done here on earth, then, our hatred, our bitterness, our unforgiveness will disappear.
What is our salvation? What is our eternal life? It is human life but of much better quality and endless in quantity in our goodness. The earth will be restored, not destroyed. We live in a world without end. And this world will be renewed. There will be a new heaven and new earth. It will be dominated by the principles of the kingdom of God.
Sometimes, Christians are too heavenly minded that we are not of earthly good. We want that we be raptured from the earth; however, we were created to live in the material world. We are stewards of this world. God blessed man to cultivate the earth and keep it. Jesus asks in Matthew 24, “Who then is the faithful servant?” The faithful servant is one that is doing his job of providing for the needs of his fellows when the master returns.
As Christians who are in the world, we were given by God the ability to minister – to meet the need of others. Our faithfulness is when we give to them encouragement, peace, and compassion. We prepare by doing these things before Christ comes. We live right now as if the life of the world to come, the Kingdom come, is already here. Isaiah says that the house of the Lord will become the chief of the mountains and people will see their testimony of joy and peace and they will be drawn and will ask, “Teach us your ways.” Weapons for killing will be converted to weapons for cultivation and then the reign of the King will come. This will happen even now as we live the future Kingdom.
Our Collect of the Day says, “Give us grace to cast away the works of the darkness and put on the armor of life now.” We will do this now! The witness of the Church is what the world is waiting for. As we wait for our Lord Jesus, the world also waits for the Church for the revelation of the sons of God to teach the world of God’s ways so that they too can enjoy His blessings.
The blueprint of our Church, the Everyday Kingdom Way, talked about active participation, active involvement, active generosity, active discipleship and active evangelism. We do this now. We live in love. St. Paul says, “Love does no wrong. Love each other.” Now is the time to do this. Now is the time to be witnesses. Live right now as if Jesus has already come back. We don’t know when but we are to be ready. We live as if the fullness of the kingdom of God is already here because this is the way it is in the kingdom of our God.
