Loving the One Who Has Come

"While the Christian is the one who exists between two incomings, looking back to one in love and looking forward to the other with longing, the current moment is claimed to be awash with the Spirit."
Peter Rollins How (Not) to Speak of God

All our Advent readings were full of this duality: the coming of Christ, both the one that happened some two thousand years ago and the one we hope for that hasn't happened yet. Here we are right in the midst of Christmas (remember, in the Church, Christmas is a season of twelve days), and this is what I want to be doing: basking in love for and of and by God. I want to revel in the reality that God so loves us that God took human form and was pleased, yes, pleased to dwell with us. I want to love this God, adore this God, enjoy this God. I want to take time simply to be delighted and to brim over with love from my deepest places. I want it to be like that first night with my first child. I couldn't stop looking. Sleep wasn't even interesting; gazing at my beloved, this baby, was all I longed for and the very reason for being.
Some time later, soon perhaps, I will wonder about this second coming of Jesus, but now this first coming is enough. God is so beautiful, so utterly amazing. How could such a One be? How is it that such a One is present to me, lovable by me, held in some real sense by me? I don't understand this God I am loving. No, I still don't understand this daughter i've been loving for some sixteen years. But full understanding isn't required. I adore; I long for; I behold; I hold. And I know myself forever changed.
This is, I suppose, what it means to be "awash with the Spirt" -- to be so overwhelmed with love for the One who loves us that we are forever changed, that all is forever changed.