The First Sunday of Advent
“Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.” – Luke 21:36
On Sunday, November 17, Canon Lee preached a fine sermon in which he said that many people are asking how we Christians should respond to what some people are calling “the end of the world,” or at least the end of the world as we know it. What they fear may or may not actually come to pass, but it is never healthy to deny negative emotions, and that includes fear. The emotions we do not acknowledge rot us from within.
One of the ways people can honestly and effectively deal with their fears is to fact-check them against previous experiences. Not always, but often, they find that they have been afraid before and, in the end, their what they feared did not get the upper hand. Sometimes, they can also draw upon the stories of others, whether historical or fictional. What seemed insurmountable was, in fact, survivable and even — to use a good Christian word — salvific.
In the final weeks of the liturgical year, we are given readings that turn our eyes toward the end times, and often, the picture is more fearful than it is hopeful. Then, as Advent ushers in the new liturgical year, we get one final week like that. Luke’s Jesus warns us today, “Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place.”
But then, in the next three weeks of Advent, our ancestors give us a way to avoid falling into terror and despair. They tell us to remember what we dare not forget: that Mary and Joseph lived in an occupied territory, that Elizabeth was too old to even imagine becoming pregnant, and that Mary was an unwed teenager on the verge of public ruin. All of it seemingly insurmountable and even terrifying, but despite all that the timeless God entered time, and the wholly other God became flesh, and we were saved.
Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your 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 living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
– Collect for the First Sunday of Advent