The Greek word that refers to Jesus’ arrival, most often translated as “second coming,” is parousia. The term was adopted by Christians from the common Greek usage and imperial Roman ideology of the day, in which a city prepared for and eagerly anticipated the arrival of a major political personage. This ancient data became known among students of the Bible through the groundbreaking study of ancient Hellenistic papyri by Adolf Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East, published a century ago. If the arrival was that of the Roman emperor, the preparation of the city and the people would be magnificent and fitting for a person of such rank. Preparation would be made for great feasts, and all the leading citizens of the city would be arrayed in their finest to meet the emperor. It was a matter of great importance.

Adventus is the Latin equivalent of parousia. Advent is for Christians a similar process of anticipation and waiting, but it must also be a time of preparation. How do we prepare for the coming of the king? In Rom 15:2 Paul asks the Christians in Rome to seek the good of their brothers and sisters, writing that “each of us must please our neighbor for the good purpose of building up the neighbor.” The church in Rome in the first century exhibited divisions between Jewish and Gentile Christians and the “strong” and the “weak,” and Paul instructs the church to imitate Christ, who “did not please himself.”

Paul prays for the Romans that “the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to think in harmony with one another, in keeping with Christ Jesus.” The New American Bible translation, cited above, captures best the meaning of the verb phroneo in this context as referring to the need of the Roman Christians to “be of the same mind” or to “think harmoniously.” To prepare for the coming of our king it is essential to seek harmony.

Christians today exhibit various divisions that mimic those of Paul’s ancient church. Our divisions are between those of different liturgical or political commitments, not between Jew and Gentile; but they threaten our ability to “be of the same mind” or to “think harmoniously” as we prepare to welcome Christ. Yet we await and prepare for the parousia of the same king, the source of harmony. Paul’s call that we “welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God” is not a simple proposal or suggestion, but the way of life that ought to set Christians apart as we prepare for Christ’s arrival. It is our task to prepare for the coming of Christ by inviting all into the kingdom, by making room in the house for those once excluded, which certainly includes our brothers and sisters from whom we might feel estranged or excluded.

Isaiah foresees the time after the arrival of the king, after the parousia, when the king has judged the poor with righteousness and “with equity for the meek of the earth.” This will be a time when harmony resonates through all creation, inaugurating a kingdom in which “the wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.” At root, this kingdom destroys expectations that life in creation must be “red of tooth and claw” and offers a new way of living together. Isaiah says we “will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea…. On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious.”

Harmony in the household of God is preparation for the kingdom, and our duty begins now. For there was another aspect of the parousia found in the Roman empire. The New Testament scholar Brent Kinman asked in an article in 1999, “What would happen if the customary greeting were not extended?” He answers that it happened rarely because of the dire repercussions; but on one occasion when that happened, the Roman magistrate in question besieged the city “because it did not receive him properly.” Our ability to welcome each other in harmony is a necessary preparation for welcoming Jesus at his parousia. 

This article appears in December 2 2013.

John W. Martens is an associate professor of theology at the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minn,where he teaches early Christianity and Judaism. He also directs the Master of Arts in Theology program at the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity. He was born in Vancouver, B.C. into a Mennonite family that had decided to confront modernity in an urban setting. His post-secondary education began at Tabor College, Hillsboro, Kansas, came to an abrupt stop, then started again at Vancouver Community College, where his interest in Judaism and Christianity in the earliest centuries emerged. He then studied at St. Michael's College, University of Toronto, and McMaster University, with stops at University of Haifa and University of Tubingen. His writing often explores the intersection of Jewish, Christian and Greco-Roman culture and belief, such as in "let the little children come to me: Children and Childhood in Early Christianity" (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009), but he is not beyond jumping into the intersection of modernity and ancient religion, as in "The End of the World: The Apocalyptic Imagination in Film and Television" (Winnipeg: J. Gordon Shillingford Press, 2003). He blogs at  www.biblejunkies.com and at www.americamagazine.org for "The Good Word." You can follow him on Twitter @biblejunkies, where he would be excited to welcome you to his random and obscure interests, which range from the Vancouver Canucks and Minnesota Timberwolves, to his dog, and 70s punk, pop and rock. When he can, he brings students to Greece, Turkey and Rome to explore the artifacts and landscape of the ancient world. He lives in St. Paul with his wife and has two sons. He is certain that the world will not end until the Vancouver Canucks have won the Stanley Cup, as evidence has emerged from the Revelation of John, 1 Enoch, 2 Baruch, and 4 Ezra which all point in this direction.