“The church lives in Advent. That is to say, the church lives between two advents, Jesus Christ has come; Jesus Christ will come. We do not know the day or the hour. If you find this tension almost unbearable at times, then you understand the Christian life. We live at what the New Testament depicts as the turning of the ages.  In Jesus Christ, the kingdom of God is in head-on collision with the powers of darkness. The point of impact is the place where Christians take their stand. That is why it hurts. That’s why the church has to take a beating. This is what Scripture tells us. No wonder there are so many who fall away; the church is located precisely where the battle line is drawn.  The knocking at the door is the noise of the struggle.  That’s why the church may not – may not – lock its doors. Whether we take that literally or figuratively, we must take it seriously. At any moment, the master himself may be the one who knocks – and we do not know what guise he will come in. What we do know is that he said, “Inasumch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” (Matt. 25:40).” – Fleming Rutledge, Advent: The Once and Future Coming of Jesus Christ (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2018), 266.