Monday, November 21, 2011

First Sunday of Advent

Next Sunday the Church begins a new liturgical year with the season of Advent. Advent, from the Latin word adventus, meaning “coming,” is a season of expectant waiting and preparation for the Nativity of Jesus and the Christmas celebration. When I was growing up, our Lutheran congregation considered Advent a time of penance, and this was common in both Episcopal and Roman Catholic traditions. The vestments were the same as those used in Lent (purple) and from the 4th century the season was kept as a period of fasting as strict as that of Lent. In the Anglican and Lutheran churches this fasting rule was later relaxed, with the Roman Catholic Church doing likewise later, but still keeping Advent as a season of penance. (The Orthodox tradition still holds with fasting for 40 days before the Nativity Feast.)
            Those of you with Liturgical calendars can see the days of Advent are still colored purple, although small notations are made to allow for blue. Blue, representing hopefulness, is a custom traced to the Church of Sweden (Lutheran) and the medieval Sarum Rite (12th century) in England. This color is often referred to as “Sarum blue.” The Sarum rite actually came from Rouen when the Normans tossed out the Anglo-Saxon episcopate and replaced the bishops with French and Normans. In 1078, William of Normandy appointed St. Osmund, a Norman nobleman, as bishop of Salisbury, the modern name of the city known in Latin as “Sarum.” Saint Matthew's switched from purple to blue, I think, around 2004.
            This year we will be celebrating the season and Sundays of Advent using Rite 1 in the Book of Common Prayer. I am doing this for a couple of reasons. The first is a nod to the penitential nature of our waiting. In particular, the public confession of sin in Rite 1 (page 331) shocks us by its language that demonstrates we are far from living as Christ would have us live. “Manifold sins and wickedness” is a far cry from “things done and left undone.” The second reason is an effort to pull us out of our comfort zone. When the same Eucharistic Prayer is used (as we have used Prayer C during nearly all of Pentecost) we tend to “zone out,” mumbling the words and not listening with joy and expectation. We pray our thanksgiving after receiving as an acknowledgment, rather than an offering of “hearty thanks.” In Rite 1 we rejoice in being “members incorporate in the mystical body of Christ.”
            The Collect for the First Sunday of Advent is taken from verse 12 of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, chapter 13: Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armor 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, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
            Marion Hatchett, in his wonderful Commentary on the American Prayer Book writes, “The striking antitheses are remarkable: cast away darkness, put on light, mortal life, great humility, glorious majesty. The word 'now' is crucial: remembering the first advent and looking toward the second, we are now, in this time, to cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.”
            NOW is the time. In this Advent season of “already but not yet,” we are to begin (again!) to understand why we are Christians. In this Advent season of ours we are to slow down, listen and be quiet. Imagine us as Christians not worrying about Black Friday, holiday lists or the bottom line. Imagine us as Christians living for NOW. In the words of Bishop Scott Benhase of Georgia, “We follow Jesus as Savior and Lord because it is the way God has given us to share eternally in the life of God.” That's right. NOW we are sharing eternally in the life of God. NOW, and tomorrow and next week and the month after, we are sharing in the life of a God who “came to visit us in great humility.”

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