Review: Advent; the Once & Future Coming of Jesus Christ by Fleming Rutledge
Bob Hyatt
November 13, 2018

Fleming Rutledge.  Advent; the Once & Future Coming of Jesus Christ.  Eerdmans, 2018. 406 pp.

“Advent is not for sissies.”

So writes Fleming Rutledge, the Episcopal priest, author, and theologian who penned Christianity Today’s 2017 Book of the Year, The Crucifixion; Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ. In her latest work, Advent; The Once & Future Coming of Jesus Christ , she compiles a brilliant and engaging collection of Advent sermons ranging from 1975-present.

Rutledge begins with an introduction to Advent that every pastor will want to read as they begin to prepare to lead their own church through the beginning of the Christian year. The first part of the book contains a handful of Advent-related writings before moving on to “Pre-Advent” sermons on themes like the final judgment, the justice of God, and sermons for the Feast of Saint Michael and Christ the King. Ultimately it isn’t until page 251 that her formal Advent sermons begin.

Her primary contention is that the church has too often used Advent to prepare for Christmas and all the ornamental sentimentalism (what she refers to as “Christmas creep”) that comes with it rather than to seriously prepare for the second coming of Jesus and His final judgment.

She writes,

“The eschatological note of Advent, focusing on the second coming of Christ-the principal subject of this book-has been largely ignored even among the most enthusiastic Advent-lovers of late” (pg. 4).

I confess that as a pastor I have too often led our church through the season of Advent doing the very thing she cautions against; attempting to suspend belief that the incarnation has happened so that we can prepare for Christmas anew. It may be a surprise to readers that the original Advent themes were not hope, peace, joy, and love.

“…the Medieval church designed the four Sundays of Advent around the themes of the four last things: death, judgment, heaven, and hell- in that order, so that the subject of hell was preached on the Sunday just before Christmas Eve. That was no accident. The idea was- and is- to show how the light of the birth of Christ appeared against a backdrop of darkness, depravity, and despair.” (pg. 238)

Recently, in Florida, a disturbing and stomach-turning plot was uncovered at Bartow Middle School where two 11 and 12 year old students planned to hide in the bathroom, overpower smaller students, cut them up and eat them before turning a knife on themselves all in the service of Satan.

This, Fleming Rutledge would contend, is an Advent story. Or, in her own words, “Advent begins in the dark.”

That’s not quite as palatable to the contemporary church-going consumer. Which is why churches have forsaken these demanding themes that involve judgment and death in lieu of multiple “Christmas Eve” services that often begin two weeks before Christmas!

But as Rutledge insists, Advent isn’t a time to prepare for Christmas, rather its purpose is to “take an unflinching inventory of darkness” (pg. 173). Rutledge accomplishes this by telling stories that highlight the darkness displayed in human depravity via the most recent headlines, which she is effortlessly able to source year after year. Against this “backdrop of darkness” the light of Christ and the good news of judgment gleam even brighter as she proclaims the hope of God’s judgment on evil and the good news of the finality of Christ’s reign in the second coming.

I appreciate her repeated emphasis on the fact that there are not only two powers working in the world (humans and God), but three powers. Rutledge acknowledges her own tradition has largely made obsolete the embarrassing pre-enlightenment belief in a literal second coming and the “antiquated” notion of divine judgment. Rutledge is clearly not capitulating to mainline denomination norms as she proclaims the reality of an enemy force that is active not just in our world but in each of us.

My only criticism of this collection is that it can be quite repetitive. She acknowledges that this is a possibility in the beginning of the book, but it does not relieve the redundancy of some of the sermons. In one way, this repetition can serve to reinforce the major themes of Advent as she sees them, but it can also become slightly monotonous as it can feel like you are reading the same sermon over again with slightly different illustrations. I suppose the luxury of preaching at a variety of churches is that you can repeat material, but in a collection of sermons published to be read it can be wearing. However, as the book ends readers are rewarded for persevering as the final three sermons may be the highlight of the entire book.

A major concern for Rutledge is not just that we understand the proper themes of Advent, but that we as the church would begin to live as Advent people.

“The call is for the Church to reclaim for the sake of its own life and mission Advent’s focus on the reign of God and, in so doing, to hone once again the counter-cultural edge of the Gospel at the very beginning of the liturgical year.” (pg. 5)

If you can’t imagine the world you are heading toward, you can’t work toward contributing toward that world. Advent helps us to anticipate the kind of world that will be realized when Christ comes again to judge evil and renew all things.

She writes

“In our present lives we are both bearing witness to and waiting expectantly for the coming of the Lord. Bearing witness is an active stance; waiting is a passive stance. Both are part of the message of the herald of the age to come.” (pg. 12)

And so, locating ourselves as living between the Old age and the New age to come makes all the difference in the way the church conducts itself in the present. 

But ultimately Advent tells us that

“The church is not called to be a ‘change agent’- God is the agent of change. The Lord of the kosmos has already wrought the Great Exchange in his cross and resurrection, and the life of the people of God is sustained by that mighty enterprise. The calling of the church is to place itself where God is already at work. The church lives, therefore, without fear, in faith that the cosmic change of regime has already been accomplished.” (pg. 12-13)

Recently, if you follow Fleming Rutledge on Twitter ( @flemingrut ), you would have read her response to a conversation on the labels “progressive” and “conservative.” She tweets,

This is a good summary of Rutledge’s emphasis of God as the primary actor through all of human history and her realistic assessment of the weakness of humanity when unaided by the grace of God.

What this all means for the church on mission is that as we live in between the ages or “on the frontier of the turn of the ages” (pg. 13), we are marked by fearless living, radical forgiveness and the weapon of nonviolence. We recognize and regularly remember that there is a hostile enemy force that is engaged in seeking to thwart God’s mission as we resist evil and give witness to the coming reign of God in our service, prayer, and counter-cultural lives together.   But ultimately our hope lies not in our own personal or communal efforts, initiatives, and agendas but rather the God of Advent who drew near to us in Jesus and who will come again to take away the darkness forever and be our eternal light.

 

The Magic Power of Encouragement

By Bob Hyatt • January 17, 2025
When I graduated from college, I moved to Alaska and took a job teaching middle school- a job I had zero business doing. I want to give props to those of you who are teachers- it’s a fantastically important job, but also a ridiculously complex one. You must balance pedagogical skills, HOW to teach so others learn, with sociological ones, classroom management, and so much more. It was classroom management where my ineptitude really shone, though. I thought managing classrooms full of middle schoolers would be easy- just call them out when they do something wrong- make sure there are consequences in place, and the place will basically run itself. I learned that year that you cannot punish someone into good behavior. You more often just punish people into stealthier ways of misbehavior. It wasn’t until years later that the light bulb came on for me. I was volunteering in my son’s kindergarten class, and I assumed I was going to be walking into a zoo. Contrary to my expectations, Mr. Waters, the teacher, had that place running like a well-oiled machine. And the most surprising way was how he did it. He called for reading time when all the kids were supposed to get up from their tables and sit on the reading circle. He made this call and like two kids responded. Oh man, I thought- he’s lost the room! Nope. He just stood at the front of the class and said “I see Billy doing what I asked. I see Sienna doing what I asked.” And every time he said that another few kids would look up, leave what they were doing and rush to take their place. In about 30 seconds, he had them all sitting quietly around the circle. Blew. My. Mind. It seemed so simple once I saw it done, but I had never realized just how big a gap there was between trying to motivate with consequences and nagging versus motivating with encouragement. Which is funny, because as I thought about it, I realized my wife had been using this tactic on me for YEARS. I married a woman who liked to dance- swing dance, even. I grew up a Baptist, so… But whenever I would do a little two-step with her in the kitchen or just play-dance with her to music in the living room, she would go OVER THE TOP. “Bob, you are doing that really well! Bob, you’re a great dancer!” I totally knew I wasn’t, but… I sure liked to hear her say it, and so I’d do it more. So, here’s the rule: What you criticize me for, I may stop doing. I may also just try to hide it from you. But- What you praise and encourage me in, I will continue doing. The Apostle Paul was a master at this- just look at 1 Thess. 5:11- ”So encourage each other and build each other up, just as you are already doing.” What is Paul doing here? Yes, he’s encouraging them to encourage each other by encouraging them for how they’ve already been encouraging one another! That’s a lot of encouraging. But he’s doing what he’s asking them to do- demonstrating how it works. I’m sure not everyone in the church of Thessalonica was good at encouraging others- but those who were doing it well were heartened by Paul’s words here, and those who weren’t yet, were… encouraged to be more encouraging. Paul uses the word “encourage” 7 times in 1st Thess. alone. This command to encourage each other is central in the NT. Hebrews 10:24-25 says this: Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near. Paul writes in 2 Cor. 13:11 “Dear brothers and sisters, I close my letter with these last words: Be joyful. Grow to maturity. Encourage each other. Live in harmony and peace. Then the God of love and peace will be with you.” How long can you go on one compliment, or one word of encouragement? A few days? A week? Our words have so much power! I once had an orange t-shirt, that had a disturbingly deep V-neck. My co-pastor Dustin would laugh every time he saw me in it. But you know why I continued to wear it? Because it was literally the only shirt I ever owned that had been complimented by a woman I was not married or related to. A barista one time told me she really liked that shirt… So, what I’m saying is, you can get me to do just about anything, if you encourage me. BUT- With great power, comes great responsibility. Notice that these verses on encouragement come in the context of helping others become the followers of Jesus they could and were meant to be. “Encourage each other and build each up.” “Motivate one another to acts of love and good works. Encourage one another.” “Grow to maturity. Encourage each other.” There’s a growth mindset behind the biblical admonitions that we ought to encourage each other. The growth mindset says “I may not be good at this or have mastered it… yet. But if I keep trying…” Unfortunately, most of us get stuck in a fixed mindset. A fixed mindset says “I'm either good at something, or I’m not. So, I’ll give myself only to things where I can show I’m good. If I must work at it, it means I’m not good at it, or smart enough for it, so why try?” Studies have shown that encouragement has a positive effect on performance, while discouragement has a negative effect. Ok- that’s obvious. But… studies have also been done about how TYPES of encouragement affect performance. Encouraging effort, for example, has a positive effect on performance, while praising ABILITY has a negative effect. One study showed that when two groups of students were presented with difficult challenges 90% of the ones who had been praised for their effort embraced the difficult tasks- while the majority of those praised for their ability resisted tackling hard things. I probably don’t have to spell out the leadership lessons here. So, I’ll just leave you with this: I encourage you this season to be thinking about the people you work with and especially those who work under you. They are just as hungry for encouragement as you are. You have the power to give them not only what they need, but through that encouragement to spur them on to the personal and ministry growth you want to see in them. (By the way, while we’re talking about encouragement, if you need some this season, join us Feb 25-27th in Alexandria, VA for this year’s Ecclesia National Gathering . I guarantee you and your team will leave feeling encouraged, equipped, and empowered. And think about how encouraging YOUR presence would be to everyone else!)

Focusing the Gospel Around the Table is Still Important Today

By J.R. Briggs • November 26, 2024
“Food is just fuel for your body.” When the raw vegan enthusiast in my community said it I knew that wasn’t right. I thought of all the great meals shared with family and friends around tables for Thanksgivings, Christmas Eves, and Easter afternoons – among others. I recalled the verse: “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” And I realized that if this was God’s vision for food, then he would have designed our bodies with built-in IV ports where we would hook up pouches of food to our sides and let it drip in slowly to our bloodstreams. And Jesus wouldn’t have given us the greatest experiential metaphor of communion around the table in fellowship with others if it was merely physical and transactional in nature. I get his point: what we put into our bodies matters. Food is for much more than just physical energy. It’s also about connection, bonding, and relationship. Storytelling and laughing and crying and interacting. Like former U.S. President Ronald Reagan said, all great change in America begins at the dinner table. But I’ll offer a rejoinder: all great change – no matter the country – begins at the dinner table. The U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, has declared loneliness as a public health crisis and an epidemic . 30 percent of adults say they feel lonely., with 10 percent reporting loneliness every day. 60 years ago the average dinner time was 90 minutes; today it’s less than 12. We are more connected to our devices and less connected to others. Almost twenty five years ago political scientist Robert Putnam wrote the popular book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community . Over the summer, the New York Times interviewed him , inquiring if he saw this crisis of loneliness coming. He stressed the idea of “social capital,” saying it comes in two forms: bonding and bridging. Bonding ties us to others like us and bridging ties us to people who are different from us. Meals together with others at tables have the transformative power to do both. They bond us to other people in our church; they bridge us to connect with others who aren’t yet connected to faith. As my next-door neighbor says when we’re trying to find a time to connect for a meal, “Everybody’s gotta eat.” Coffee tables, lunch tables, high top bar tables, card tables, dinner tables – all have the intent to bring us together with others over food and/or drink. It was Len Sweet who wrote in Tablet to Table that Jesus was killed for his table manner and his table company. Later he stated that the gospel message was Jesus eating good food with bad people. In fact, you’d be hard pressed to find any gathering in the New Testament that didn’t involve some sort of table. And as Ian Simkins, lead pastor of teaching at The Bridge Church in Nashville, shared with me, the table is the centerpiece by which the gospel is expressed. The church has moved to prioritize the table by asking some key questions: What if we reclaimed the table? What if our tables weren’t for just feeding, but for forming? What if, at the table, foes became friends? What if, every time we sat down, we prayed, “at this table as it is in heaven”? What if we brought the gospel back to the table? These are the questions that must become front and center for the church in North America in the days ahead. In fact, you can view the church’s creative and compelling videos on Instagram here and here . Americans eat, on average, 21 meals a week. Think for a moment: how many meals did you share with others this week? How many meals did you eat alone this week? How many people did you share with those who weren’t your immediate family members? How many of those were with people who are not followers of Jesus? What if the greatest advancement of the gospel in the days ahead occurred not in our churches, but around tables?
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