BECOMING CHRIST-LIKE
Return to God’s word. Allow it to transform you. Notice how your faith is being deepened and your way of life motivated.
COMMENTS
In Advent we celebrate Christ’s coming into our human world in the past, 2,000 years ago. We also look ahead to Christ’s coming in the future. We do both of these now, in the present.
In this way, Advent almost transcends time — it brings together the past, the present, and the future. But all of these are centered on the same thing: God’s love. The love that brought Christ into our world so long ago. The love that would come into our lives today. The love that will remain constant unto the end of time.
How can I become more Christ-like this Advent? Today, for me, the answer is right there. Love. The love out of which God created the world in the first place calls out to me today. Love the world, love those in it, love life.
I wrote previously that the Genesis creation story called me to look at the world as God did — as “good”. The parts of life that don’t seem that way to me right now, all the craziness and injustices of the world, are places in which I can work to bring about the good. In a real way, I can be a part of God’s creating act.
If I do this, am I not living in and spreading God’s love? The love out of which God created the world, the love that brought Christ into it.
By seeking to share God’s love and transform creation, we’re living out the Advent calling. Advent invites to prepare for Christ by drawing nearer to him. And by doing this we become more like him, living in God’s love and sharing it with others.
It’s all very much a mystery, and I don’t pretend to fully understand it. But I feel blessed to be invited into it. And in whatever little ways I can, I will look for ways in the world that I can seek to share that love, to help turn the not-yet-good into the good, to be a part of God’s love in the world.
Taylor Morgan
© Creation, Donald Jackson with contribution by Chris Tomlin, 2003. The Saint John’s Bible, Order of Saint Benedict, Collegeville, Minnesota. Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Catholic Edition, © 1993, 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.