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.

 

Tithe.ly is Partnering with Ecclesia!

By Bob Hyatt • September 15, 2025
A New Ecclesia Network Benefit! 

An Ethical Response to Violence

By By Jim Pace • September 15, 2025
In the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s shooting, social media has been filled with perspectives, as is typically the case. I am reluctant to add mine as there seems to be no lack one way or the other. To be clear, this is not just about Charlie Kirk, this is about violence across the board. I did not feel led to write this because it was Charlie Kirk specifically, but rather another in a long and winding line of acts of violence, that my ministering at Va. Tech gives me a bit of personal experience with. But as I have just finished teaching two classes on Christian Ethics, and as I was encountering again the spread of responses from my Christian sisters and brothers, I felt led to look at this event through that lens. Ethics, at its base, seeks to answer the question, “What is better or worse? Good or bad?” As a follower of Jesus, this is what seems right to me… 1. We never celebrate harm. Whatever our disagreements, rejoicing at a shooting violates the bedrock claim that every person bears the imago Dei (Gen 1:27). Scripture is explicit: “Do not rejoice when your enemy falls” (Prov 24:17); “Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you” (Matt 5:44); “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Rom 12:21). I don’t love blasting verses like this, but you cannot get away from them if you are reading the scriptures. 2. Moral responsibility sits with the shooter—full stop . Saying “his rhetoric got him shot” smuggles in a just-world logic that excuses violence. As a contextual theologian, I have an enormous amount of respect for the impact our various narratives have in shaping our understandings of the world around us. They are inescapable. But that is not what I am talking about here. Ideas can be wrong, harmful, or worth opposing vigorously, but vigilante ‘payback’ is never a Christian category. My primary gig is that of a consultant for churches and non-profits. Today, in my meetings and among friends, I have heard some variation of “He got what he deserved,” and “I vote for some very public justice for the shooter.” Both of these views speak of revenge; the follower of Jesus is called to lay these down as our Messiah did. Not asked to, told to. 3. Grief and outrage about gun violence are legitimate; schadenfreude is not . Channel the pain toward nonviolent, concrete action (policy advocacy, community intervention, survivor support), not dehumanization. Here are four thinkers who have had a profound impact on the Christian ethic I try to work out in this world. As I share them, three things are worthy of mention. One, I certainly do not claim to follow their guidance perfectly, and at times I do not even do it well, but they have all given me what seems like a Jesus-centered and faith-filled direction to move in. Second, I do not claim to speak for them in this particular matter; I am merely showing how my ethical lens has been formed. Third, clearly I am not dealing with all the components of our response to these types of violence, this is not a comprehensive treatment, merely the reflections in the moment. Stanley Hauerwas : “Christian nonviolence is not a strategy to rid the world of violence.” It’s part of following Jesus, not a tactic we drop when it’s inconvenient. Stanley Hauerwas, Walking with God in a Fragile World, by James Langford, editor, Leroy S. Rouner, editor N. T. Wright : “The call of the gospel is for the church to implement the victory of God in the world through suffering love.” Simply Good News: Why the Gospel Is News and What Makes It Good. In other words, we answer evil without mirroring it. David Fitch : Our culture runs on an “enemy-making” dynamic; even “the political rally… depends on the making of an enemy. Don’t let that train your soul.” The Church of Us vs. Them. Sarah Coakley : Contemplation forms resistance, not passivity. For Coakley, sustained prayer trains perception and courage so Christians can resist abuse and give voice against violence (it’s not quietism). “Contemplation, if it is working aright, is precisely that which gives courage to resist abuse, to give voice against violence.” Sarah Coakley, God, Sexuality, and the Self. Coakley would say that far too often we react before we reflect. This is the problem that Fitch is getting at in much of his writing, that our culture actually runs on antagonisms, the conflict between us. We need to find a better way.