THE VANTAGE POINT
OF ADVENT
First Sunday in ADVENT
29 November, AD 2009
TEXT: The Collect of the First Sunday in ADVENT
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
“Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal, through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, now and ever. Amen.”
(Collect for the First Sunday in Advent)
So reads the Collect of the First Sunday in Advent. It was composed by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer for the 1549 Book of Common Prayer and it gives us a glimpse into the unique theological vantage point of the Advent season. For today, we stand at the edge of a new Christian Year. Almighty God has seen us through the year just past and has willed that we should be present at this new beginning; full of the anticipation, hope, patience, and obedience that God’s Grace, Love, and Providential Care bestows upon all of us. For it is, during this season of Advent, that the Church commemorates and celebrates all of the prophecies from Genesis through those of St. John Baptist and some even from the Apocryphal books, that pertain to the coming of the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One of God who would restore, not only a right relationship between God and His people, lost to us because of our first disobedience, but who offers us something else, as well – new, unending, and abundant Life for those who believe in His Son’s Name.
It is from the peak of this unique Advent vantage point that we can “see” into the past as well as into the future. It ties together, for us, the beginning and the ending of our salvation, not only corporately, as the Church of God, but also individually, as God’s people. In this respect Advent is unlike any other season or time of the Christian Year and it accomplishes an astonishing two-fold feat. First, it binds together the two advents of Jesus Christ; that of His first coming at His birth as the Child of Bethlehem and how that birth impinges upon our present human condition and that of His second and final coming as the Son of God in all His Power and Glory. And secondly, it binds together our human present with God’s future, which, even now, rushes continuously towards us.
Last week, in his sermon, Fr. Ben mentioned that a baby changes everything. That is certainly true when a baby is born to a family, but it had universal and eternal consequences when it happened at Bethlehem about two thousand years ago. It is this baby of whom the first part of the Advent Collect speaks; as one, who, in our time, came to visit us in great humility – speaking to the fact of the Holy Incarnation, when God stepped out of His eternal Glory, emptying Himself, and became a human, just like we are, by donning human flesh and blood and condescended to be born of a woman, and entered our human history so that He would be Emmanuel – God with us. St. John reminds us of this miracle in the Prologue of His Gospel in Chapter One, verse fourteen following which reads,
“And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth. And John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, ‘This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before me.’ And of his fulness have all we received, and grace upon grace.”
This is the first Advent of Jesus Christ of which Advent commemorates, His birth at Christmastide. From our unique vantage point on this Sunday we are called to remember and look back on that historical event; how the birth of this tiny Child in the small, politically insignificant town of Bethlehem, changed the course of human history and our individual souls. And how all of this was prophesied and told to those who could hear it, the magnificent event that God would someday bring about for His people. And on that night in Bethlehem, it happened; and Advent will always point back to that event and how it was proclaimed by prophets and seers that God would restore His Creation back to Himself.
Were that all, it would be enough. For that is the essence of Christmas and the birth of Our Saviour, Jesus Christ. But that isn’t all. Advent looks not only to the historical past, but also to the future and proclaims, just as loudly as did the prophets of Jesus’ first coming, that Our Lord will come again; this time, in a different form and in a different way – as the King of Glory and Our Judge Eternal. No more mangers, no more night, no more little, quiet towns. This fact Jesus proclaimed, Himself, as He stood before Caiaphas, the high priest, after having been betrayed by Judas. Caiaphas asked Jesus, as recorded in the fourteenth chapter of St. Mark’s Gospel, verse 61f, “Again the high priest asked him, ‘Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?’ And Jesus said, “I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.” At Our Lord’s Ascension, two angels told the Apostles who stood around gazing into Heaven, “This Jesus, who was taken up from you into Heaven, will come again in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” St. Paul echoes this reality in many of his epistles, especially I Thessalonians, and, finally, it is confirmed once again in the Apocalypse of St. John, chapter 1, verse 7 which reads, “Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen. I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” Our Lord’s second coming was not just a thought of passing fancy, it is a promise – one that our soul can rely on and one we proclaim every Sunday when we say the Nicene Creed. Advent calls us to remember the day, that day when Our Lord Jesus will return and establish fully the Kingdom of God on this earth.
These are the two distinct events that the vantage point of Advent affords us. So it might shock our senses a little bit, at first, to hear today in the Gospel, the account of our Lord’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem shortly before His Crucifixion. But it shouldn’t, really. Because just as surely as Jesus entered that great city to bring about the culmination of who He was and what He was about, so, once again, we prepare for His coming into our hearts. For the next four weeks we prepare Him room as we hear once again the prophecies of joy in the redemption that has come to us in the Holy Incarnation and anticipate with awe the Judgment that yet awaits us. Both of these tremendous events of the past and the future are experienced by the spiritually discerning believer as eternally present realities during the Advent season. And with it, the invitation to invite Jesus into your soul once again. Feed upon Him in your heart by faith with great Thanksgiving and become involved in the great adventure that the Season of Advent brings us all! Maranatha! The Lord comes!
And now, unto God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost be ascribed all might, majesty, power, and dominion as is most justly due this day both now and forever; world without end. Amen.
SOLI DEO GLORIA – JEU+