Review: Advent; the Once & Future Coming of Jesus Christ by Fleming Rutledge
Bob Hyatt
Nov 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.

 

How It Is Now Is Not How It Will Always Be

By Bob Hyatt • 20 Mar, 2024
One of the main tricks in life, I believe, is not to extrapolate current conditions and circumstances off into the future. However, that’s exactly the tendency we have as humans, and especially, I’ve discovered, as ministry leaders. We look at things now and think they will always be that way. We long to see landmarks in the road, mileposts that tell us either we have now reached the pinnacle, the place we always dreamed of being (even if that place is only “stability”), or conversely, the bottom has fallen out and now is the time to bail out. But the mileposts are merely markers on the journey, telling us where we are now, promising nothing of the journey ahead. And so, when things are good, we see nothing but success and good times stretching out in front of us. In the depths of despair, during the most challenging times of life and ministry we feel as though the darkness has become the new normal. The reality is much more complex: there are always better times ahead, and worse ones as well. During those dark times, when ministry becomes more of a weight than a joy, I tell myself, “whatever is happening now will not keep happening forever.” Those words have kept me through relational breaks in our staff that seemed unfixable, through budget woes when we didn’t think we were going to meet payroll, even a time when our community lost a third of its members because we had let a beloved pastor go. In this way I have found hope. In the same way, during the successful times when we were growing, budget was bigger than ever, and when new people were engaging with the church seemingly every week I continued to tell myself, “what is happening now will not keep happening forever.” In this way I have found a measure of humility. There’s another way to read this mantra as well, one that encourages us not to miss what is happening right now as we overly focus on where we’d like to be or what we’d like to see happen. The challenge of ministry, like the challenge of life in general, is to be present to what’s happening now . Too many single people miss the joys of singleness longing to be married. Too many young married couples miss the joys of the early years without children because they long to be parents. Too many parents of young children miss the joys of the infant years, longing for the days when their children are more independent, less dependent on them for everything. And on it goes. In the same way we in ministry can miss the joys of a small, close community by looking at larger communities and wishing we had their resources and influence. We can miss the inherent learning and even joy of being shoulder to shoulder in community with others through challenging times because the difficulties and pain we are experiencing mask the ways in which we are being brought together, the ways in which we are being formed and the invaluable things we are learning. In life, and in ministry, remember: How it is now is not how it will always be. Learn to appreciate how things are now, but also take comfort in the fact that if things are difficult, there are better days ahead. Stay humble because no success is forever. Stay hopeful because, in Christ, no failure is permanent.

Exciting Announcement- Ecclesia is Joining Ascent!

By Chris Backert • 19 Feb, 2024
I’m writing to share some exciting and important news with you that we believe will be significant for Ecclesia in the days ahead! For the last few years, I have been engaged with other church and network leaders across the US and Canada about forming a new “connection” for the church in North America. The heart of the effort is around unifying, amplifying, and multiplying the kind of Christian witness that Ecclesia represents, for the sake of the gospel, over the next few decades. This new effort is called The Ascent Movement, and within the last 12 months, its momentum has picked up increasing speed. A few months ago, I was asked by the council of Ascent if I would help spearhead the development of the network in its next phase. I agreed to accept that task. One of the core goals of Ascent is to connect, coordinate, and collaborate with groups like Ecclesia so that we can do more together than we could in isolation. In many ways, it will function as a “network of networks” like Ecclesia functions as a “network of churches”. In addition to ministries like Ecclesia, there are also seminaries, mission agencies, and other ministry support organizations that are joining Ascent in these early days. For the last several months the Ecclesia board has been discerning whether or not Ecclesia would officially enter into a partnership affiliation with Ascent. We unanimously affirmed that decision at our recent board meeting. Since Ascent is in its early phases of formation, more information on the benefits and opportunities of this new partnership will be ongoing. However, we are happy to share some of the aspects of this new affiliation that we find compelling and will not only bless Ecclesia, but also all of the churches within Ecclesia. First, given the size of Ecclesia, there have always been areas of ministry that we believe are important, but toward which we have not had the scale to accomplish or contribute. Among these are concrete efforts around - increasing the witness of the Hispanic church in North America - supporting mission expansion to less-resourced parts of North America - increasing opportunities for disaster relief and response - and mobilizing prayer networks. Further, there are also specific and tangible benefits that are made possible through this partnership for any Ecclesia Churches. Some of these include things like - discounted tuition costs to Truett Seminary for any Ecclesia leader or member serving an Ecclesia Church. - discounted rate in utilizing the services of Chemistry Staffing for future hiring - access to a church-based missionary sending ministry for those Ecclesia Churches engaged globally, and more! Lastly, there is a specific aspect to this partnership affiliation that is particularly helpful to Ecclesia. Ascent has agreed to partner with Ecclesia over the next year to expand our church planting and multiplication reach in a way that benefits both Ecclesia and Ascent. Practically, this looks like Ascent investing a little over $1,000/month into Ecclesia over this next year and together working toward a set of mutually beneficial goals. As I think about this opportunity within the current moment of our network, it seems right for multiple reasons beyond the purely practical. At our Ecclesia board meeting in late 2022, we established a path for individual affiliation within Ecclesia to make concrete space for leaders who are outside ministry contexts that allow for our core congregational affiliation. The heart of this decision was a desire to increase the kinds of relationships that Ecclesia has within our scope of ministry. The decision to affiliate with Ascent is similar. Also, as I shared at our Ecclesia Gathering in January, this decision fits within the Core DNA of Ecclesia. When I look back at the founding of our network, three aspects were central then and have carried forward. First, our desire to extend the gospel to increasingly post-Christian, or more challenging, settings and groups of people. Second, a desire to exemplify a Christian witness aligned with the theological and missiological direction of affirmations like the Capetown Commitment. Third, our desire to provide a relationally rich journey of friendship for the churches and leaders who are part of our family. When I consider the affiliation with Ascent, we share in common those first two Core DNA. As for the 3rd foundational aspect of our network, I believe the time has come where Ecclesia itself needs “friends for the journey” in the same way that Ecclesia has provided a context of friendship for those within our community. On the other side of COVID, it’s clear that ministry in the days ahead is more exciting, while also more challenging and complex. We believe we need a greater community to be the most faithful to the gospel that we can. You can go to www.ascentmovement.org to get a quick glimpse of its vision. The current website is a placeholder for a more thorough site coming later this Spring. Ecclesia, of course, will have a seat at the table in its formation. We have also provided a one-page overview of Ascent on the attached document. We will keep you updated on this exciting development. Please feel free to reach out with any questions. - Chris
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