Advent is usually described as a season of waiting.
Waiting for Christ.
Waiting for light.
Waiting for hope.
Waiting for God to draw near.
But I have begun to wonder if that might be the wrong way round. Because the more I sit with the story, the more I sit with Scripture, the more I sit with the strange and holy hunger of Advent, the more it feels like Christ is not the one who is slow.
Maybe Christ is already here. Maybe he has already arrived and keeps arriving.
Maybe the world is full of him and we simply have not caught up.
Maybe Advent is not waiting for God. Maybe Advent is God waiting for us.
The slow awakening of the human heart
When Paul tells the Ephesians to wake up from sleep so Christ will shine on them (Ephesians 5:14), he is not telling them to summon Christ from a distant place. He is urging them to open their eyes to a presence already at work. When Jesus says the kingdom is near and among you (Luke 17:21), he is not pointing to a future event on the horizon but to a reality already pressing against the surface of the world.
It is not that God has not come. It is that we have not yet learned how to see.
The Church has always spoken this way. The early fathers taught that the coming of Christ was not a moment locked in the past but a mystery that unfolds in every age. His birth is once for all, but his appearing keeps breaking open wherever hearts soften. Wherever we forgive (Matthew 6:14). Wherever we love without fear (1 John 4:18). Wherever the image of God in us pulls free from the dust (Genesis 1:26). Wherever humanity remembers what it was made to be. In these places Christ is born again.
This is not sentiment.
It is the pattern of salvation itself.
The God who is always arriving
We imagine Christ’s coming as if he moves and we sit still. But what if the deeper truth is that Christ moves in every direction at once and we are the ones struggling to move with him?
Advent hints at this.
The prophets speak of God drawing near (Isaiah 40:10), yes, but they also speak of people returning, lifting their heads, following the path back to the face of God (Isaiah 55:6–7). The story is mutual, relational, alive. James says draw near to God and he will draw near to you (James 4:8). Not as an ultimatum, but as the rhythm of communion. God moves. We move. God comes. We awaken.
Augustine once wrote that God is nearer to us than we are to ourselves. If that is true, then the Advent hope is not that Christ will one day close the gap. It is that He already has.
The long formation of the soul
Most of the time we do not see Christ clearly because we have not grown into the kind of humanity that can recognise him. He is not absent. We are unformed.
Like Israel in exile, we wait for freedom but carry the habits of captivity (Jeremiah 29:11–14). Like the disciples on the Emmaus road, we walk beside him but do not know his name (Luke 24:13–32). Like Mary in the garden, we think he is the gardener until he speaks (John 20:14–16).
Advent is the slow work of becoming attentive.
Advent is the discipline of desire becoming mature enough to discern God’s presence. Advent is the training of the eyes so that we can see the world as it truly is: full of God, held within God (Acts 17:28), moving towards God.
This is why the season emphasises repentance and preparation. Not because God is unwilling to come, but because receiving divine presence requires a heart that is being reshaped. The fathers said that God is always giving God’s self. The problem is not God’s giving. It is our capacity to receive.
Advent asks us to grow that capacity.
Christ in our midst
When Jesus promises that he will be with us always (Matthew 28:20), he is not speaking in metaphors. His presence fills creation and also dwells uniquely among his people. In the gathering of believers (Matthew 18:20), in the breaking of bread (Luke 24:30–31), in the quiet prayers whispered through tears (Romans 8:26), he is there. Not symbolically. Truly.
The Church is not the whole of his presence, but it is the place where his presence becomes visible, embodied, and communal. The early Christians called themselves the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:27) because they believed something profound: Christ continues his life in and through the community that bears his name.
In other words, he has already come. He keeps coming in the world.
He keeps coming in the Church. He keeps coming in the human heart.
Christ is not running late.
Christ is waiting for us to join him.
The goal of all things
Advent stretches our desire toward the future. Toward a world renewed. Toward a humanity restored. Toward creation set free from its groaning (Romans 8:19–22). Toward the final unveiling of Christ in all things (Colossians 1:27).
But even this future is not passive waiting. Paul says creation groans as in labour pains. Something is being born. Something is coming to term. God is drawing all things toward fullness (Ephesians 1.9–10), and Christ is the centre of that movement. Everything bends toward union. Everything bends toward restoration. Everything bends toward the One who holds all things together (Colossians 1:17).
The promise is not that Christ will eventually arrive.
The promise is that all creation will eventually open its eyes and be made new (2 Corinthians 5:17, Revelation 21:5).
The end is not Christ drawing near.
The end is us becoming able to recognise the One who has always been near.
Advent as invitation
So perhaps this is the quiet scandal of Advent. We wait for Christ. And Christ waits for us.
He waits for us to trust that God is near.
He waits for us to grow into the likeness he planted within us (2 Corinthians 3.18).
He waits for our vision to sharpen.
He waits for our love to deepen.
He waits for our courage to rise.
He waits for our wounds to be healed.
He waits for our communities to become homes of mercy and fire.
He waits for us to finally recognise that the world is not empty but saturated with his presence.
Advent is not the countdown to God’s arrival. It is the training of the human gaze and heart.
It is the season where Christ says, again and again:
I am here.
Catch up.
Grow.
Wake.
Become.
Step into the fullness I have already begun in you.
Maybe the question is not:
When will Christ come?
Maybe the question is:
When will we become the kind of people who can see that he’s already here dwelling among us?
“The Saviour has already come to dwell among us, and still we must awaken, for only those who learn to see him now will more easily know him in the age to come.”
– St Athanasius, St Symeon the New Theologian
Scribbling Theology 