This past Sunday, Steve Bell offered a reflection during his concert at Hilldale Lutheran that has stayed with me (btw, our son Graham played a few tunes with him on guitar and did a great job. Very proud). Anyway, he spoke about the three comings of Jesus that the Church has always celebrated in Advent. Now, we usually talk about “two comings” – 1. Jesus came once, as a baby in Bethlehem 2000 years ago and 2. Jesus will come again, in his glory, to renew all things. And this past Sunday we noted how we’re in the in-between of these two comings and the work of the Church is to figure out what that is to look like and what we are to do in this in-between time.

But Steve pointed out something that feels especially important for us right now: Both of those comings are, in a sense, beyond our immediate reach: the first happened long before we were born while the second has not yet happened. We remember one and anticipate the other… but neither is something we live in firsthand.

And that’s where this idea of a third coming of Jesus is worth pay attention to. This is a coming that meets us right in the middle of our ordinary, complicated lives.

This third coming is not past or future. It’s present. Immediate. Accessible. The Church has always insisted this coming is just as real, just as meaningful, just as transformative as Bethlehem or the final return.

Steve noted there are at least three ways in which Jesus tells us he is present now:

1. Jesus comes to us in the Eucharist

“This is my body… this is my blood.”
None of us can fully explain this — and we’re not meant to. The Eucharist is a mystery. Yet Christians throughout the centuries have trusted Jesus when he says he meets us in the bread and cup. And each time we take of it, he comes to us anew.

2. Jesus comes to us in gathered community

Jesus tells us that “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” Not hypothetically.  Not sentimentally. Not metaphorically. Jesus binds himself to his people. You don’t have to conjure up his presence – you just have to be in community, together.

3. Jesus comes to us in the face of the poor and vulnerable

“Whatever you did for the least of these… you did for me.” Jesus doesn’t just meet us in worship or sacrament. In yet another mystery, Jesus meets us in the very faces of the hungry, the lonely, the wounded and the overlooked.

This is the Jesus who refuses to remain distant. The Jesus who is Emmanuel — God with us.
Here and now.

We often approach Advent as a season of remembering and waiting — looking backward and forward at the same time. And that is totally fine and good to do. But Bell’s reminder helps us hold the season in a more comprehensive way, reminding us that Advent is not only about what has been or what will be.
It’s about what is.

So what does this mean for us as we move through Advent?

• When you come to the table, come expectant.
  The bread and cup aren’t a ritual — they are an encounter with Immanuel.
• When you gather with others, honour the presence of Jesus among you.
  Be mindful of his presence and remember that every conversation becomes sacred ground.
• When you see someone struggling on the margins, remember who stands before you.
  Jesus is not absent from those who suffer — he is found within them.

Again I’m reminded that Advent is the season where the Church whispers to one another:
Slow down. Pay attention. God’s presence is so much more nearer than you think.