Janie B. Cheaney: The two advents

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LINDSAY MAST, HOST: God’s first coming inspired fear; His second brought peace. The difference explains both the limits of the law and the necessity of the cross. Here’s WORLD commentator Janie B. Cheaney:

JANIE B. CHEANEY : He warned them. He told them he was coming, and his demands aligned with that of any self-respecting deity of that time: Wash your clothes, keep your distance, abstain from sex.

For three days they followed instructions with increasing anticipation. All the great nations of the world had national gods; now this body of shepherds and slaves was to meet theirs. If the signs and wonders that accomplished their deliverance from Egypt were a preview, Israel could expect a deeply satisfying religious experience.

Thunder and lightning began early on the third day, followed by the peal of trumpets, louder and louder until the air rang with it. The mountain writhed in smoke and flame. Then they heard Yahweh’s voice, and trembled with the true and terrible dimensions of “God with us.”

This was the first advent: God coming to his people. And though his presence provoked reverence and fear, he was not offering a "religious experience." He was offering himself.

He came with a warning: Do not let the people come near "lest I break out against them." The threat implies infinite power held forcefully in check - the creator and sustainer of the universe crowded into limited space; eternity squeezed into linear time. Solomon would later declare: "The heavens themselves cannot contain you," - how much less this mountain, this nation, this world. He was more than his people could bear. The people cried: “Let not the Lord speak with us, lest we die."

Perhaps they instinctively understood that Holiness cannot dwell with corrupted flesh. The violence of his appearing was the clamor of a gulf not easily breached, the roar of conflict between perfect righteousness and human depravity.

So no one was prepared when he came again, even though he warned them. The prophets foretold and the psalmists looked forward in hope to the time when, as Psalm 85 anticipated, "mercy and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed." But could anyone imagine what it might take for righteousness and peace to kiss?

After centuries of failure and reform, exile and return, breaking and refocusing and fine-tuning the law, God’s people still didn’t understand that they dealt with a God who could not, in justice, deal with them. The blood of bulls and goats kept his righteousness from "breaking out," but making peace required a better sacrifice.

Thus the second advent: no thunder, lightning, or trumpet, just a handful of excited shepherds and the weak cry of a newborn in the middle of an overcrowded city. God himself molded to human flesh and confined in a very small space.

They were looking for a conqueror to defeat their enemies, not expecting he would take on the ultimate enemy. They were looking for Messiah to solve their problems, not understanding that he must first become their problem. The apostle Paul says it this way in 2 Corinthians 5:23: "[God] made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him."

No fire and smoke on the mountain, but a "breaking out" on a hill called Calvary. Grace and justice, mercy and truth met together to make peace at last, and the place where they met forms a cross.

I’m Janie B. Cheaney.

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