Every Advent I re-memorize the prayer – the Collect – prayed daily in the prayer offices of the Church, including the four Sundays in Advent:
“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.” 1928 Book of Common Prayer, p.90, Thomas Cranmer, 1489-1556, Archbishop of Canterbury in the reign of Henry VIII.
And so I will set up my Advent wreathe tonight, this First Sunday in Advent, and light that first candle.
Advent is a fascinating season, a season of preparation for the greatest of all events in the world, the birth of Christ, and yet it is full of “great humility.” How do you combine the two, greatness and humbleness? To be sure, mankind has turned any remnants of humility into pride, and the festivities often neglect the true festival, the coming of the Son of God, to give life to our world of death.
In this sense, then, Advent has been betrayed by misuse and buried in the attic of our childhoods, so I approach these few weeks quietly and with deepening wonder. For the weeks of Advent are serious ones – with themes of Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell to help us face the reality of our lives, of life itself. We consider death, an event that we will all encounter; we learn of judgment, an accounting of our life; we are given hope that our penitence will rebirth our souls and send us to Heaven rather than Hell.
Christians today don’t like to speak of Hell. And yet we see bits of it all around us. We see the darkness in the butchery of children in the recent October 7 attacks, in the transgender kidnappings, in the lives of the unborn snuffed out.
We see the darkness of Hell in the silencing of Heaven, with attacks on God’s chosen people, on houses of worship, on academic speech.
We live in a dark world, and in Advent we pray to see light, to see the star that will lead us to Bethlehem. That star is there for all to see who are not blind. It is bright with the love of God and the love of mankind. It is our beacon of hope in a world of despair.
And so we follow the star through the season of Advent, learning our Advent Collect to say each day, to add to our morning and evening Our Father who art in Heaven… We want the words on the tip of our tongue, so that we can hold them in our hearts forever.
We look forward to God the Son’s glorious majesty in the world to come, to the Judgment, and to Heaven’s gates opening to us, when we rise to the life immortal. We pray for grace to cast away the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.
And so we journey to Bethlehem, to the cave stable, to Mary and Joseph, to the Christ Child in the manger, our only hope of Heaven and our true Light of Life, giving thanks for God’s great acts of salvation among us.
Deo Gratias.
Christine Sunderland
Christine Sunderland 