My wife Wendy is a huge Troy Polamalu fan.<\/p>\n
She admires the classy way he shows love and respect for his wife and his understated but firm Christian confession\u2014and then, of course, there is my own uncanny physical resemblance to Troy Polamalu.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mostly, though, it is fun to watch Troy Polamalu play football! He hurls himself into the game, seeming to be everywhere at once. While other defenders try, with greater or lesser success, to follow where the ball is<\/em>, Polamalu reads the line, intuits where the ball will be<\/em>\u2014and then does whatever he needs to do to put himself in that spot, to break up the pass, get the tackle, or make the interception. To use a theological expression, Polamalu plays proleptically<\/em>.<\/p>\n Advent is a season of joyous expectation as we look forward not only to our imminent celebration of Christ\u2019s birth, but also to Christ\u2019s future coming, and the establishment of God\u2019s kingdom on earth. But we miss the point if we think this is all about the future.\u00a0 Far too much ink has been spilled and time wasted in the fruitless attempt to predict the future with the symbols and visions of Scripture, as though the Bible was a horoscope or Tarot deck rather than word of God for people of God.\u00a0 Jesus himself firmly directs us away from that tack: \u201cBut about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father\u201d (Mark 13:32).<\/p>\n Instead, Advent invites us to live the way Troy Polamalu plays: proleptically<\/em>, as though the promised future was already a reality.\u00a0God calls and empowers us to live by the principles of God\u2019s kingdom not someday, but here and now!\u00a0So the prophet, speaking of Messiah\u2019s future reign, declares, \u201cIn his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. And this is the name by which he will be called: \u2018The LORD is our righteousness\u2019\u201d (Jer 23:6)\u2014not \u201cThe LORD will be<\/em> our righteousness, someday,\u201d but \u201cThe LORD is<\/em> our righteousness, right now.\u201d Future expectation transforms life in the present.\u00a0 Paul too speaks of this proleptic life.\u00a0While on the one hand, Christ\u2019s reign and our salvation are part of the world to come (cf. 1 Cor 15), on the other, Paul can speak of that reality as though it had already arrived: \u201cSo if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!\u201d (2 Cor 5:17).<\/p>\n The certain triumph of God\u2019s reign gives us hope, so that we can live confidently in the present. We can face whatever comes, because we know the end of the story.\u00a0 We need not cynically yield to this world\u2019s standards and expectations, because we know what God\u2019s future holds.\u00a0Like Troy Polamalu, we know where the ball will be!\u00a0 Now, are we willing to do whatever it takes to put ourselves there, at the point of God\u2019s inbreaking reign?<\/p>\n Written by the Rev. Dr. Steven Tuell, James A. Kelso\u00a0Professor of Hebrew and Old Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My wife Wendy is a huge Troy Polamalu fan. She admires the classy way he shows love and respect for his wife and his understated but firm Christian confession\u2014and then, of course, there is my own uncanny physical resemblance to Troy Polamalu. Mostly, though, it is fun to watch Troy Polamalu play football! He…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6345,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[8,16,31],"series":[],"class_list":["post-586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-theological-reflection","tag-bible-study","tag-festivals-and-holy-days","tag-seminary-community"],"yoast_head":"\r\n