The
First Sunday in Advent
The Collect.
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LMIGHTY
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.
¶
This Collect is to be repeated every day, after the other Collects in Advent,
until Christmas Day.
The Collect today speaks of another Advent than that for which our ancient
fathers in God waited – the Second Advent of the Lord Jesus Christ. But the
first advent began long before – in fact, in the Garden at Eden. The Creation
of the physical universe began in abject darkness and was completed in the
light of day. The physical Creation began in the darkness of evening and
ended in the light: “And the evening and the morning were the first day.”
(Gen 1:5) The second Creation, or New Creation in Christ, began, as well, in
darkness. Contrary to the belief of many, the Gospel did not originate with the
Gospel of St. Matthew; but that, too, began in the Garden at Eden: “I
will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed;
it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” (Gen 3:15)
This was the first reference in the Bible to the coming of a saving via the
seed of the woman (and not the man). The second also is found in the same
chapter: “Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of
skins, and clothed them.” (Gen 3:21) You may ask, “How does this relate
to the promise of the Coming of a Savior?” Let me explain: Until sin came upon
the old Creation thru the Fall of Adam, there had been no death at all. Sin
brought death, disease, pain, and suffering upon all of Creation. These came
not through the intentions of God, but through disobedience of man. For
the first time, after the pillars of the world had been laid, some innocent
creature had to die to cover the nakedness (sin) of Adam and Eve. God killed an
innocent animal, perhaps even a lamb, to cover their nakedness with its skin.
Thus begins the Gospel from the first beginnings of Creation.
Man cannot help himself. His ways are forever dark and chaotic apart from the
grace of God. And man can possess no righteousness, nor do righteous works,
apart from the imputed light and righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ. Light
reveals the safe and good way to walk. In times past, the fathers sat in
darkness awaiting the light to come – the Advent of Christ. There is a prophecy
of that coming Light in Isaiah: “The people that walked in darkness have
seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon
them hath the light shined.” (Isaiah 9:2) The hope and promise of the
Advent of Jesus Christ is held forth in Isaiah, and completed in the Gospels of
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The very same words are uttered in Matthew 4:16
as Isaiah 9:2 in reference to the coming of the Lord. So our Collect makes
reference to the great first Advent, as well as the Second.
Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me:
and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the
messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the
Lord of hosts. But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand
when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap: And
he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons
of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord
an offering in righteousness. Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be
pleasant unto the Lord, as in the days of old, and as in former years. And I
will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the
sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against
those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless,
and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the
Lord of hosts. For I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are
not consumed. Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto
him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments. Behold, I will
send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of
the Lord: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the
heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a
curse. (Malachi 3:1-6, 4:4-6)
God does not speak lightly of His provision of a Savior. He says with great
emphasis: “Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the
way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple,
even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come,
saith the Lord of hosts.” Yes, there were righteous men and women
who early sought the Lord before His first coming as a Babe in a Manger. The
Christian man, Abraham, believed and looked for the coming of Christ – and
Jesus tells us that Abraham saw it! From the beginning of the Promise, it was
not a particular bloodline that sealed our hope and salvation, but faith in the
Promised Seed which is Christ! “Your father
Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad.” (John 8:56) Moses believed the Promise as well: “This
is he, that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spake to
him in the mount Sina, and with our fathers: who received the lively oracles to
give unto us.” (Acts 7:38) Even Balaam
saw through a dark glass the vision given him by God of the Coming Lord: “15 And
he took up his parable, and said, Balaam the son of Beor hath said, and the man
whose eyes are open hath said: 16 He hath said, which heard the words of
God, and knew the knowledge of the most High, which saw the vision of the
Almighty, falling into a trance, but having his eyes open: 17 I shall see
him, but not now: I shall behold him, but not nigh: there shall come a Star out
of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners
of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth.” (Num 24:15-17)
The Old Testament Lectionary Reading omitted a very important verse ($:2)
regarding the Sun of righteousness whom we await. Moreover, Malachi closes the
Old Testament writings with the word curse – the last word of the Book of the
Laws and Prophets. All of the Law is a curse to us if we must rely on our own
righteousness; therefore, the New Testament brings into sharp focus the One
upon whose righteousness we must depend – the Lord Jesus Christ.
In our Gospel text (St. Luke 1:5-25) we are introduced to that
Forerunner of Christ who was to prepare His Way before Him – John the Baptist.
He was one whose voice cried in the Wilderness. May I say that every true
believer in the Lord Jesus Christ is as one whose voice cries in the Wilderness
of the Sin of this World. If no man hears our voice, at least the scrub bushes
and rodents will bear testimony that we did, indeed, cry aloud and no man
heeded our voices.
Advent marks the beginning of our Church Year in the Calendar. It represents
that new beginning that was prophesied of old, and fulfilled in the Gospels of
Jesus Christ. Just as the Old Testament prophets preached the hope &
promise of a coming Savior, we now stand on the threshold, at Advent, of the
realization of that promise. Advent symbolizes the hope and promise made of
old, and Christmas symbolizes the fulfillment thereof.
When I was a child, I remember the selfish and greed-filled excitement of
hearing the little jingle; ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town.” Other seasonal
favorites were ‘Jingle Bells’ and ‘Deck the Halls’. These songs appealed to my
materialistic side because they represented gifts and largesse of candy.
As I became a young boy, I lost interest in these songs. I discovered that it
wasn’t a mythical Santa Claus who was coming to town, but a glorious Savior who
was coming to the world! The happy and silly little jingles lost all of their
sparkle as I began to understand the deeper and more meaningful appeal of true
Christmas hymns and Carols. These hymns were not about a make-believe figure of
whom I had been taught, but of a true, loving, and redeeming Savior. ‘Hark the
Herald Angels Sing’ was a carol whose meaning was authenticated to me by Holy
Writ. It was the Christmas songs that I began to love and cherish – and still
do – above every other form of singing. No longer would I restlessly await the
streaming rays of sunlight across the horizon on Christmas morn so that I could
go and plunder gifts from under the tree; but I looked now for the promising
rays of Light from the Sun of Righteousness whose comings and goings have been
from Ancient Days. Advent, and the twelve days of Christmas were indivisible in
my mind for they represented the same glorious Savior of whom I had been taught
at my mother’s knee – the REAL thing! No longer would I condone x-ing out the
name of Christ for the Christmas Holiday as in ‘Xmas’. No longer would I abide
childish fables of some fancy dressed bishop with white collar, red gown, and
floppy miter. I looked beyond the polish to the substance of Christmas. Advent,
for me, is the beginning of the Christmas Season, and my last breath on earth
will signal the end of it rather than the conclusion of Trinity.
Advent signals the growing light on the distant horizon, and the coming of
Christmas symbolizes the bursting forth with the brilliant beams of the Sun.
Christ has been coming from Eternity Past, and God has allowed our fathers to
sit in darkness as evidence that they cannot be their own Light-bearers. We are
lost without the promised Light of Advent. The blazing Light of Christ at
Christmas was such a contrast to the darkness under which mankind had suffered
that His blessings and benefits could not be missed by those whose faith proved
their relationship to that Light. It was not coincidence that the Wise Men saw
the Light of the Star before they found the Babe. Christ came to earth as an
innocent Babe in a wooden manger – a vessel for the feeding of brute beast
(which man is without Christ). He lived a sinless and sacrificial life, and
died on a like instrument of wood for us two thousand years ago. His Advent is
a continual process until His Second coming with the clouds of Glory and the
Armies of Heaven. Will you be ready, my friends?
