Jannus was the Roman of gates and doors. He had a distinctive profile. He was often depicted as having two faces. Some believe he was portrayed in this manner because doors and gates look in two directions.

The season of Advent is the time of year that we look in two directions. It's the one time of year that being "two-faced" is okay. Over the next four Sundays, the Church wants to take a long look at the manger and linger over this mystery: Christ came first as a helpless infant. He will come next as a mighty warrior.

Martin Luther wrote the following about His first coming. "The mystery of the humanity of Christ, that He sunk Himself into our flesh, is beyond all human understanding" Table Talk. The word Luther may have been searching for is the word, ineffable. It means, "incapable of being expressed in words."

This season of Advent has been set aside to contemplate the ineffable, the unspeakable, the indescribable. It's the time of year when we try to capture that which escapes human understanding.

When we talk about the first coming of Christ, we're talking about the second person of the Trinity, the eternal Son of God, taking on humanity with all of its limitations. Here is how St. Paul describes it:

"For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich." – 2 Corinthians 8:9 (NIV)

What does that mean, "He became poor"? It means He let go of his position; He relinquished all of the riches of heaven, in order to become one of us. He gave up that glory in order to become a human baby.

He didn't become an adult. Instead he became a helpless infant who was completely at the mercy of Mary and Joseph. He was unable to feed himself, unable to move about, and unable to communicate. He was unable to do anything except eat, sleep and dirty His diaper.

And here's the irony of it all. Christ was dependent upon the man and woman He created. He was dependent upon them to take care of Him.

Now why is this important to us? Because the infant in the wooden manger grew up to be the Savior on the wooden cross. The incarnation is every bit as important to us as the cross and the resurrection.

During the Litany we pray and ask God to deliver us, "By the mystery of Thy holy Incarnation." Jesus' birth was efficacious. His becoming human was God's way of rescuing us from the power and penalty of sin.

With His first advent Christ came as a babe witharms. He extended Himself to the Jews living in Palestine. He reached out to them. He made Himself vulnerable. But they denounced and condemned him. They rejected Him and finally crucified Him.

The Scriptures tell us:

John 1:11 "He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him."

John 19: 12 "From then on Pilate [the Roman Governor] sought to release Him, but the Jews cried out, saying, 'If you let this Man go, you are not Caesar's friend. Whoever makes himself a king speaks against Caesar.'"

John 19:15 "But they cried out, 'Away with Him, away with Him! Crucify Him!' Pilate said to them, 'Shall I crucify your King?' The chief priests answered, 'We have no king but Caesar!' "

Matthew 27:21-25 "The governor answered and said to them, "Which of the two do you want me to release to you?"

They said, "Barabbas!" ²²Pilate said to them, "What then shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?" They all said to him, "Let Him be crucified!" ²³Then the governor said, "Why, what evil has He done?" But they cried out all the more, saying, "Let Him be crucified!" ²⁴When Pilate saw that he could not prevail at all, but rather that a tumult was rising, he took water and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, "I am innocent of the blood of this just Person. You see to it." ²⁵And all the people answered and said, "His blood be on us and on our children."

One of the messages of Advent is that God is a gentleman and he will give you what you want. The Jews insisted that that Caesar was their king. In addition, they were adamant about who should be held responsible for the death of God's Son. They cried, "His blood be upon our heads and the heads of our children."

So our Lord appeared to His people a second time. But the second time He didn't appear to them as an innocent babe. Instead, He came to them as a divine warrior to punish them for their steadfast stubbornness and their willful disobedience.

During Advent, this is the second direction we're to look. First, we're to ponder the incarnation, the babe in the manger. Second, we're to thoughtfully consider His retributive justice when He appeared at Jerusalem in 70 A.D. to obliterate the Jewish Temple.

Jesus announced to the Jews in Matthew 23:38, "See your house is left to you desolate."

The word "desolate" means - devoid of inhabitants and visitors; joyless, disconsolate, and sorrowful as if through separation from a loved one, showing the effects of abandonment and neglect, dilapidated, barren.

In Matthew 24:1-3, Matthew records these words about Christ's judgment of Jerusalem: "Then Jesus went out and departed from the temple, and His disciples came up to show Him the buildings of the temple. ²And Jesus said to them, "Do you not see all these things? Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down."

In Mark 13:1-2, the Gospel writer penned this editorial remark, "Then as He went out of the temple, one of His disciples said to Him, "Teacher, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here!" ²And Jesus answered and said to him, "Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone shall be left upon another, that shall not be thrown down."

Finally St. Luke 21:5-6 writes, "Then, as some spoke of the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and donations, He said, ⁶"These things which you see--the days will come in which not one stone shall be left upon another that shall not be thrown down."

The words of Christ are confirmed by the Jewish historian Josephus, an eye witness of Jerusalem's destruction.

"And now the Romans upon the flight of the seditious [Zealots] into the city, and upon the burning of the Holy House itself... brought their ensigns to the Temple, and set them over against its eastern gate; and there did they offer sacrifices to them, and there did they make Titus imperator [Caesar], with the greatest acclamations of joy." (Wars of the Jews, 6:6:1, 743).

An excerpt from The Expositor's Bible Commentary, validates Josephus' sentiments. The horrors of the siege of Jerusalem in AD 70 are further explained:

"The savagery, the slaughter, disease, and famine (mothers eating their own children) were monstrous, 'unequalled from the beginning of the world until now,' and according to Jesus, 'never to be equalled again.' There have been greater numbers of deaths—six million in the Nazi death camps, mostly Jews, and an estimated twenty million under Stalin—but never so high a percentage of a great city's population so thoroughly and painfully exterminated and enslaved during the fall of Jerusalem."

So, what do we learn from this season of Advent? We learn to mourn for our sins because God came to dwell among us. We learn to yield to Him with unconditional surrender because one day He will return as a mighty warrior. May God give us grace to respond to His to His love. Amen.