Living Between Advents
My daughter Jordan, and more than 400,000 other people, follow an account on Twitter that claims to belong to a dog. The account gives posts from the perspective of a dog. For example, here is the post from Thanksgiving Day:
It would be fascinating, wouldn’t it, to have access to the thoughts of an actual dog?
One thing we don’t have to guess at when it comes to what a dog is thinking is the thinking of our dog Dasher when we when arrive home. It seems like our coming home, our arrival, is the highpoint of Dasher’s life. Whether it’s our son Jacob coming home in the afternoon from school, or Kendra or me coming home in the evening from work, Dasher turns circles, does little dances, licks our hands, and acts like he hasn’t seen us forever. He lives for our arrival. We know exactly what he’s thinking: “I’m so glad you’re here! I’m so glad you’ve arrived!”
This is the perspective Paul gives to our lives in our text:
3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 4 I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, 5 that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge— 6 even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you— 7 so that you are not lacking in any gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, 8 who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. (1 Cor 1:3-9 ESV)
Paul sees us as having two highlights in our lives. They both have to do with the arrival of Jesus. The arrival of Jesus is the most important event in human history. Thus, Paul pictures our lives as existing between two Advents (from the Latin adventus meaning “coming” or “visit.”)
- One Advent happened in the past. Paul refers to this with his phrase “testimony about Christ.” This is a reference to the testimony or preaching in Corinth about the first arrival of Jesus–his birth, life, ministry, death and resurrection. This Advent is in the past. It’s what we celebrate at Christmas.
- The second Advent is in the future. Paul refers to this one with his phrases “the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ,” “the end” and “the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” This is a reference to the time when Jesus will come again–his Second Coming. This Advent is in the future.
In a superficial way, our dog lives for our arrival. In a much deeper way, Paul is saying, we live for the arrival of Jesus. The two most important moments in human history are these: the first visit of Jesus among us–which we celebrate each year at this time; and the future visit of Jesus among us–his second coming. We live in between these two Advents.
Giving Thanks
What are we supposed to do as we live between these Advents? Paul addresses this at the beginning of his text:
3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 4 I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, 5 that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge— 6 even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you— 7 so that you are not lacking in any gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, 8 who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. (1 Cor 1:3-9 ESV)
As we live between the Advents, grace is given by God and thanks is given by us. Paul reminds the Christians in Corinth that while they’ve been living between the Advents, “the grace of God” has been given them in Christ Jesus. He then proceeds to point to things they’ve received in the present–expressions of God’s grace. In addition, Paul, in v. 3, prays for God to grant them grace in the here and the now. With these two mentions of the word “grace” Paul is picturing life between the Advents as a time when grace is given by God.
Certainly the two Advents themselves are moments of grace. The first Advent, the one in the past, was a moment of grace. Each year at this time we commemorate the grace given when Jesus first visited in the form of a baby. And the second Advent, the one in the future, will be a moment of grace.
But by reminding the Corinthian Christians of the grace they have received while living between the Advents, and by praying in v. 3 for God to continue to grant them grace, Paul is reminding us of a very important truth: grace is given in the present. Grace is not just something we were given at one point in the past, like at the first Advent of Christ. Grace is not just something we were given at some past time in our life, when times were good, when we used to have friends, or we used to have a great job, or we used to have health.
And grace is not just something we will be given at one point in the future, like at the second Advent of Christ. Grace is not just something we will be given in the future like when we finally get into college, or we finally find someone to marry, or we finally start earning some real money. Paul is showing us that grace is being given in the present as we live in between these Advents.
And this naturally leads Paul to give thanks. Paul says, in fact, that he’s “always” giving thanks to God, if only for the way grace has been given to the Corinthians (not to mention the grace Paul himself is receiving!).
There is an intimate connection between these two actions. The Greek word for “grace” is charis. The Greek word for “give thanks” is eucharisteo.
The word charis or grace is within the word eucharisteo or give thanks. As grace is given to us in many different forms from God, we naturally give thanks to God for that grace.
Paul is reminding us here that this grace is being given to us in the present. Grace, being given in the present, prompts thanksgiving in the present. We don’t just have reasons in the past for giving thanks. And we don’t just have reasons in the future for giving thanks. For Paul, the present is filled with many reasons for giving thanks, because the present is filled with grace.
Extraordinary Grace
Paul points to two kinds of graces which prompt thanksgiving as we live between these Advents. First, Paul points to what we might call extraordinary grace. Extraordinary grace in the present prompts thanksgiving. We might think of this as “big” grace. We might consider this as the “big” reasons for giving thanks.
Paul mentions a few of these extraordinary forms of grace that were given to the Corinthians when we writes this:
3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 4 I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, 5 that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge— 6 even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you— 7 so that you are not lacking in any gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, 8 who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. (1 Cor 1:3-9 ESV)
If we had time, we could read 1 Cor. 12-14. There, we’d find that these spiritual gifts like speaking in tongues and possessing spiritual knowledge were really big deals to the Corinthians. Some of them received these miraculous spiritual gifts after they became Christians. These blessings, these graces, were among those they treasured the most. They may not sound like much to us, but to these Christians, these expressions of God’s grace were huge!
In our day, extraordinary forms of God’s grace might take forms like these: the family member who survives a health scare, the unexpected acceptance letter into our top college choice, or the job we really wanted but thought we’d never get.
These graces are the ones that are easy for us to see and are the ones we quickly and easily give thanks for.
Ordinary Grace
But Paul also points to another form of grace. Paul’s thanksgiving flows also due to what we might call ordinary grace. Ordinary grace in the present prompts thanksgiving. We might think of these as the “smaller” and more routine graces that come our way.
Paul points to some of these when he writes this:
3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 4 I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, 5 that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge— 6 even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you— 7 so that you are not lacking in any gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, 8 who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. (1 Cor 1:3-9 ESV)
With these lines Paul refers to the inner strength the Corinthians receive each day, the growth they are experiencing in Christ, and the fellowship they have with Jesus. These things are less flashy and more difficult to see than the graces Paul mentioned earlier. They are the “small” graces.
In our times, these refer to the stamina that keeps a friend from giving up on a difficult friend month after month; the small yet sure signs of growth that occur over weeks and months and years like being able to be around that difficult family member who is visiting for the holidays and for the first time not saying something we regret; and the slow but growing sense of the presence of Jesus in our lives.
These are things we are much more likely to take for granted. Yet even for these ordinary experiences of grace Paul gives thanks.
Giving thanks for ordinary graces is an important way to experience joy in between the Advents.
During a dark time, struggling with the death of her sister, Ann Voskamp writes of her determination to write a list of 1,000 things and give thanks for each one. Her list of 1,000 contained some extraordinary graces. But for the most part her list was filled with ordinary graces. For example, she writes of being filled with gratitude one day for grated cheese:
“When [my husband] comes in from the barn, he finds me…leaning over a plate of cheese grated and sitting in the sunlight. It is quite possible that the God-glory of a ring of shredded cheese may be lost on him. It isn’t.
‘I like finding you like this.’…
‘Crazy like this?’ I blush silliness.
‘Perfect like this. You being happy in all these little things that God gives.’
Ridiculously happy over slips of cheese. That I am, and it’s wild, and oh, I am the one who laughs. Me! Changed! Surprised by joy!”
(Ann Voskamp, Selections from One Thousand Gifts: Finding Joy in What Really Matters, page 24)
Brian Doyle, in his A Book of Uncommon Prayer, writes thanksgivings for the ordinary and mundane. He includes this one for Cashiers:
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote about the necessity of giving thanks for ordinary graces:
“Only he who gives thanks for little things receives the big things. We prevent God from giving us the great spiritual gifts He has in store for us, because we do not give thanks for daily gifts…We pray for the big things and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small (and yet really not small) gifts. How can God entrust great things to one who will not thankfully receive from Him the little things?”
(Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community)
Ultimately, the call to give thanks for the ordinary grows out of that first Advent. Christmas reminds us of the grace of the ordinary. Frederick Buechner tells of one Christmas Eve in Vermont.[1] He and his wife had put their small children to bed. Frederick remembered just then that he had promised his neighbor, who was out of town in Florida, that he’d feed his neighbor’s sheep that night. So Frederick and his brother put on their coats and boots and trudged through the thick snow to the neighbor’s barn. They pulled down a couple of bales of hay, pulled the chain on a 40 watt bulb, and put the hay out for the sheep. There was the smell of that hay. The sound of the sheep baa-ing. The sight of the snow falling. And it was only then that Frederick saw it–the manger, the feeding trough where they had had placed the hay for the sheep. He wrote this:
…it was only then that I noticed the manger, though I might not have noticed it at all. And it seems to me the whole world is a manger, the whole bloody mess of it, where God is being born again and again and again and again and again and again. You’ve got your mind on so many other things. You’ve got your mind on this and that, you don’t see it. You don’t notice it.
( Frederick Buechner The Remarkable Ordinary)
That first Advent reminds us of this truth. It was so ordinary–that first grace. God born in a simple and ordinary manger. And God continues to show up in the most ordinary things. But we’re so busy we don’t see it. Take time this week to notice God in the manger. Take time to notice God in the ordinary. Do the exercise in the Link. Give thanks for the ordinary.
EXERCISE: Write a prayer of thanksgiving for an ordinary object/event/circumstance.[2]
- Set your timer for five minutes jot down a list of ordinary objects/ events/ circumstances.
- Look over your list and choose one.
- Set your timer for ten minutes or as long as you like and write a prayer of thanks.
[1] Frederick Buechner The Remarkable Ordinary
[2] (adapted from https://the49thyear.com/2017/06/23/in-gratitude-to-brian-doyle-prayers-for-ordinary-things/ )
