Merry Christmas! Thanksgiving is over and we’re now in the Christmas season, right? We call it Advent, but we all know it’s really the Christmas season, right? Happy Advent, we say, and then wink.
Everything around us says it’s Christmas. Christmas advertisements have been on the television for weeks. Stores and restaurants are decorated and Christmas music is in the air. Even in our own gift shop we have been selling Christmas items for some time, and I hope you will stop by after mass and make your Christmas purchases. I suspect a Christmas tree or two have appeared and are fully decorated and lit up in some of our homes. Some of you may even be dressing in red and green already, and some of you may be wearing that special Christmas brooch or pin. Merry Advent!
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, everywhere, that is, except in the church.
Here there are no Christmas trees, no poinsettias, the flowers in the sanctuaries are sparse, there are no Christmas carols, fewer candles at the high altar than usual, and the color is a penitential purple. There’s a hint that Christmas is on the way by the appearance of a bare stable and an Advent Trindle with only one candle lit. Instead of singing the Gloria in Excelsis (Glory to God in the highest) at the beginning of the liturgy, we sing the Trisagion (Holy God, Holy and Mighty, Holy Immortal One, Have mercy upon us). At the Breaking of the Bread, instead of singing “Alleluia, Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us,” we sing “O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us.” It’s beginning to look and sound a lot like Christmas except in the church.
This ancient season of Advent, with its emphasis on penitence and examination of life, may seem more anachronistic than ever, a vestige of a much more austere time and medieval mindset. Especially if you have children or grandchildren, it’s more and more difficult to escape the frenzy of this time of year and hold the line.
Is there any real reason today to step back and listen to what the Church is saying we should be thinking about and doing during these few weeks before the celebration of the Nativity of our Lord? I’d like us to take just a few moments and look at the collect for today, for the first Sunday of Advent. I have already done it, by the way, in my article in The Pelican this month, but I would like to go into a little more detail.
First of all, the collect addresses God. “Almighty God;” most collects in the prayerbook at this point would give an attribute of God, like “to whom all hearts are open” or “who desires not the death of sinners,” and then comes the petition, what we are asking God to do. There is no attribute of God in this collect. Instead, it launches right into the petition, which gives the collect a sense of urgency. There’s no time for the niceties. “Give us grace to cast away the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.”
That is a beautifully poetic way to call us to repentance, for repentance always is twofold, a call to reject those things in our lives that do not glorify God and to turn to things that do. It is a call to examine our lives, to face those things that we have done that are sinful, and to confess our sins. And then it is a call to put back in our lives those things that draw us back to God: daily prayer, scripture reading, works of mercy.
The collect continues, “now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility.” The phrase “great humility” refers to the incarnation, God taking flesh and becoming a human being in Jesus of Nazareth. Now there’s a little bit of Christmas! But wait a minute. It speaks of Christmas as a present reality, not something that happened 2000 years ago. It speaks of this period of time of 2000 years as a single whole. It should remind us that the Christian faith thinks of this time as the “last days.”
The collect continues, “that in the last day when he shall come again with power and great glory to judge the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal.” The last day is the Day of Judgment. That’s what today’s Gospel is about: “…the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory.” Central to the faith of the Christian Church is the strong belief that human life has a goal and that goal is to live eternally with God. How we live our lives now has eternal consequences. We must cast away the works of darkness and put on the armor of light if we want to live with God forever.
We must never forget that our Lord Jesus Christ came to this earth in order, through his death and resurrection, to reconcile us to God. Humanity, because of sin, was in need of reconciliation with our Creator. In order to celebrate rightly that coming of Christ, it is appropriate that we come to grips with our own condition and take steps to prepare rightly and in such a way that we are ready to receive him at the end of time.
Take time this Advent to examine your life, to confess your sins, to say your prayers, to read holy Scripture, and to do good works. If we do this, we will be prepared to receive Christ when he comes again to judge the living and the dead and we will be rightly prepared to celebrate his first coming as well.
Merry Christmas! (wink)
Sermon preached by The Very Rev. Fredrick A. Robinson
Church of the Redeemer
Sarasota, Florida
First Sunday of Advent
30 November 2014