God's Omnipresence

Advent is typically expressed in Church music and liturgy as a time when God suddenly, through the incarnation, became present in an open and obvious way, unlike the past and the present where God's presence is more elusive.  And the point of Advent thereby becomes a message of hope that God will one day again become revealed in a manner that is open and self-evident.

This understanding of Advent, and the story of Jesus generally, is not found in a close reading of the canonized gospels.  Instead, we see a God whose presence was evident in the same manner that God's presence was evident before Jesus and after Jesus.  When seen through the perspective of those who witnessed the events, God's presence would not have been self evident.

That, of course, does not mean that God was not present in Jesus, which is the whole point.  God always has been present and always will be; just not in the open and obvious manner that the world expects.  The task of the Church is to discern God's presence where human culture only sees absence.

Mark's gospel begins with Christ suddenly arriving and proclaiming a message of repentance.  Human culture would have seen an itinerant Jewish Mediterranean peasant rabbinic teacher.  The Church knows otherwise.  We are called to proclaim it