Advent I 2009

‘Very few people’, wrote Ronnie Knox, ‘…feel sure that they are going to hell. Those who die in the faith, but without charity, mostly think, wouldn’t you say, that they are all right, they have just scraped through. And those who have lost the faith, or who die in sin outside the influence of faith, probably lay some flattering unction to their souls, it will be all right, they think, they will be given another chance. Up to the moment they are taken away, this world of creatures treats them no differently than any soul predestined to eternal life…So perfect is the illusion of security around them, that they forget God, and forget that they are forgetting him…And then, quite suddenly, the bottom falls out of that world…God, who gave that material world that he has come to all its reality, is now the only reality left; and with a great hunger of loneliness the heart that was made for him turns back to him, and God is not there. The sinful soul has created for itself, as it were, a godless universe.’

What a grim way to begin this Holiday Season. The Christmas decorations have been up since before Halloween. Everybody is getting into the mood for Christmas. The parties have begun, the cheer spreads far and wide. Christmas is too “nice” and “happy” a time to limit it to the traditional twelve days following the Feast itself and ending with the Epiphany of our Lord. What a grim way I have begun this sermon as we approach the holidays. But wait. This is the season of Advent. Have you noticed the purple vestments and the altar frontal, the burse and veil? They are all purple. Remember? This is the season of penitence. Not too long ago preachers were instructed to preach on judgment, death, heaven and hell. Advent is a time of preparation. Advent is a time of fasting and abstinence. Advent is a time for “cleaning the house” of the soul. Advent is a time for our self-emptying, that we might live in the Body of his new birth.

So today we face hard truths and a new beginning. Unlike those whom Father Knox describes as “having forgot that they have forgot God”, we are called to remember that God has remembered us. And so we begin anew on this Advent Sunday, the first day of the Church’s New Year, remembering that the Lord is coming to us again.

But is it not interesting that our Gospel reading for today records Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, riding on an ass, and hearing the rapturous welcome of the crowd crying “Hosanna to the Son of David; Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord?” These readings surely are meant for Palm Sunday, are they not? Well yes, but they are also chosen for today for very good reason. You see the Word of God is coming into the flesh at Christmas time. The new born babe wrapped in swaddling clothes will be lying in the Blessed Virgin’s arms in a manger. That is the literal meaning of the coming of Christ at Christmas. But there is a deeper meaning. It involves you and me, here and now. Our collect for today says, “give us Grace that we may cast away the works of darkness and put upon the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life.” Our prayer for today exhorts us to the now. Yes, Christ did come long ago and was born a babe in Bethlehem at Christmas time. But Christ is coming to us now, in the time of this mortal life, through the Holy Spirit, in order that we may be prepared for death, judgment, and we pray, heaven and not hell. Christ remembers to remember us, you see. And we must take this Advent Season as a time to know that he comes to us and remembers us. We are members of his Body, and so we begin to embrace the conceived Word of God in the soul of the Church. Remembering us he comes to us. But let us see who he that comes.

Christ is coming to us now, and we read of his entry into Jerusalem. Christ is coming now and he comes into the Church, his Body, to confront and address us. Christ comes into Jerusalem and he is heading for his final hours of Passion and Crucifixion. The Word conceived in our souls, in the soul of the Church, comes with a purpose, and there is a double meaning. As he remembers us, we remember ourselves, who we are and how we have reacted to his coming. Christ is coming into our midst and we are rejoicing. The first meaning relates to our first reaction to him. We cry “Hosanna to the Son of David; Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.” How often are we prepared to welcome Jesus into our souls and the soul of the Church on a good day, when his address seems soothing and benign, when we find ourselves living comfortably and so half-hearing his Word, content as it were, with the way things are? Sure, we sing our hymns and we are positive thinkers. We even thank Him for what he has done for us. What a wonderful man, he was so kind. “Hosanna to the Son of David; Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.” He is coming and this Christmas will be one to remember. “Deck the halls with boughs of Holly.” “The most wonderful time of the year!” Oh, yes, and Christ is coming. I love midnight mass.

We have said what a wonderful man he was. But we live now, some two-thousand and some years later, “now in the time of this mortal life, in which …Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility.” Who is he? He was the Son of Mary, and we believe that he was the Son of God. But who is he now? He is the same Person, and he comes again as the humble one. He has no horse-driven chariot. He is not robed in imperial purple and crowned with gold. He comes to us in great humility. Then as now he stoops down from his heavenly throne, he humbles himself of himself, he empties himself of himself. Here is the second part of the double meaning. Here is our second reaction to him. They cried and we cry “Hosanna”, but do we know what it meant then and what it means now? Christ is coming and confronts us with himself, he is God’s address to us. Fa…la….la….la…. Something in us is altering. We notice that there is a strange contrast. Something in us is moved by the humility, and perhaps even by what might happen. They followed him to the Temple; we follow him into the Church. And the one whom we praise and hosanna, then and now turns everything upside down. He cast out the money changers then. He came to cast out those who bought and sold, traded and exchanged in things that were not of God. Then it was money and doves. What is it today? What is the commerce and business of the Church, his Body? He is on a mission. He comes to drive out of our hearts all thoughts, words and deeds that are not of God. He comes to either drive them out of our souls, or to let us know, that if we do not allow him to come and to do this, we will be driven from the Temple of Heaven at his Second Coming. Who was He and who is He? He is humble, but he is also determined and righteously angry. Are we singing still with the same vim and vigor, joy and happiness? He is God’s address to us. He confronts us with his coming. We can have no part of his coming unless it involves our cleansing and purging.

Jesus is coming. He came to cleanse the temple then, and he comes to cleanse the Church now. And this is a good thing. For when he comes most fully to us, the church and we must be cleansed. He is coming, but in history, he is moving on to man’s rejection of him. He moves on to Passion and Crucifixion. He is coming, “now in the time of this mortal life”, and now, to cleanse our souls and the Church. How do we react to him? Soon their hosannas would become “crucify him, crucify him.” Jesus is coming. What will we cry as he comes to us? Do we truly want him to come? What or whom are we expecting? To welcome his birth truly, his coming, at Christmas time will mean something quite literally life-changing if we embrace his coming now. He comes to purge and cleanse us and the Church. He comes to die. He will confront and address us with his death. It would be his death then. Will his coming mean our death now?

He comes in the now to prepare us for Christmas. St. Paul teaches us how we are to be cleansed as we prepare for his coming at Christmas, and his coming at the end of the ages. The coming now, though, will determine our reaction to him when he comes again. So St. Paul tells us first that we are to embrace love. In Christ who comes to us today we are to receive love. (I know, he seemed alright on the ass, but when he entered the Temple his love took a funny turn.) Today he comes with love, tough love. Maximus Confessor tells us that God the Father is first Love, and the care first addressed by God is love. So this is the sovereign love of God in the flesh before us. Our commerce and exchange, our communication and trade must be an exchange of love. Love comes to us today, and we must embrace it. “He that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.” Christ Jesus has come to us as love in the flesh, stooping down to us as humility in the flesh, to bring us the love of the Father. The thoughts, words, and deeds of the Temple then and the Church now are meant to be expressions of love of God and love of neighbor. Today’s love is to be feared. Christ is Love made flesh. He comes to clean house because he loves us. Will love made flesh bring to death our sin, our vice? God confronts and addresses us with his love. Love in the flesh comes to us.  Love is dead to himself and love will die. He invites us into himself. Will we come into the reality of this Love?

True love, again Maximus Confessor tells us, fears God. And so we embrace today the gift of God’s Law in the life of Jesus. To be members of the Church, Christ’s Body, awaiting his coming, means that we embrace the Law made flesh. This is Jesus. In his body is no hint of adultery or inner lustful or lecherous thoughts; there is no murder or interior hatred, anger, rage, there is no stealing or depriving or taking from others in our minds the honor and respect due to others’ integrities, there is no lying on the outside nor deceiving oneself on the inside, there is no coveting of other men’s goods externally and no obsession with others or what they have internally. None of these actions or thoughts have any place in the body of Christ. We are his Body, we are members of Jesus Christ, but he comes to us spiritually in order to ensure that we “cast away these works of darkness and put upon us the armour of light.” St. Paul began with love and concludes with love. “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” Jesus comes to us because we are his neighbours and potential friends. He is the love of neighbor and of us. Love fulfills the law, because Jesus is God’s law in the flesh. His law is love. He is the Law and Rule of love in the flesh. Will the law of love govern our lives? We were confronted by Jesus and he addressed us with death. We became part of his death to himself and his final death in the flesh. Will we live in the law of love that comes to us as his new life?

Christ comes to us today, in the now. St. Paul continues, “And that, knowing the time, that now is the high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we first believed.” Jesus Christ is salvation in the flesh, coming to us...nearer and nearer. And so we must awaken out of our sleep and slumber, out of our comfortable ways of “existing”, coming away from our worship of mammon and material reality, our pursuit of self and comfort. We must awake. We must awaken to his coming. “The night is far spent, and the day is at hand; let us therefore cast away the works of darkness and put upon us the armour of light.” Let us walk in the daylight of Christ Jesus’ today. Walking in his light means walking in and through him, as members and parts of his Body. We walk in and through him. And so we walk out of “rioting and drunkenness, chambering and wantonness, strife and envying,” out of death, and into the Body of Christ, a cleansed temple full of resurrected souls. Christ comes to us and we remember that we are members of his Body. “Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof.” That means, as parts of his body, we are not to sort-of put him on, as spiritual schizophrenics, partly in and partly out of Him, having his armor protect part of our lives but not the whole. NO. We are to put him on completely, because he comes to us, even as we live in Him. To put him on completely means to enter into his body, protected by the armour of his love. He confronts us and addresses us in his coming with an invitation to be members of his body. Will we enter into his Body, to be enlivened by his wisdom, power and love?

“Up to the moment they are taken away, this world of creatures treats them no differently than any soul predestined to eternal life…So perfect is the illusion of security around them, that they forget God, and forget that they are forgetting him…And then, quite suddenly, the bottom falls out of that world…God, who gave that material world he has come to all its reality, is now the only reality left.”

It is not easy, I know. This world treats us all alike, Christian or pagan. Father Knox is talking about pagans who are secure in the “perfect illusion of security” which surrounds them. But couldn’t the same be said for us Christians. Are we any less gripped by the immoral ways of this world? Are we any less immersed in materialism, commercialism, the “falalala” world of comfort and superficiality? Christ is coming. Father Knox tells us that they “forget God, and forget that they are forgetting him.” Are we any different? Do we truly believe that he is coming with tough love to purge? Or have we forgotten that we are forgetting him?  Will, quite suddenly, the bottom fall out of our worlds? The bottom can fall out of a “Christian’” world too! What are we left with? God. But what is our relation to him? Have we been allowing his Spirit to cast away our works of darkness? Have we been living in the light of his Body? Have we been purged in order to be filled with Jesus’ true coming into us each and every day, “now in the time of this mortal life?” Or are we half-baked Christians? Are we Sunday morning Christians? Are we ritualists? Based upon our response to the coming Jesus Christ of today, of now, we shall find that in the end there is God and God alone. That will come at death. With death comes judgment. With judgment comes either heaven or hell. If we welcome the tough love of his coming today, we shall grow more and more into his knowledge and love. And then his coming now will move us deeper and deeper into his Ascended, Resurrected life today, in which he crucifies us and resurrects us, in which he purges us and cleanses us, as we continue to make pilgrimage to meet at his coming tomorrow.

Let us end with the Mystical Prayer of St. Simeon. Christ is coming:

“Come, true light. Come, eternal life. Come, hidden mystery. Come, nameless treasure. Come, ineffable reality. Come, inconceivable person. Come, endless bliss. Come, non-setting sun. Come, infallible expectation of all those who must be saved. Come, awakening of those who are asleep. Come, resurrection of the dead. Come, O Powerful One, who always creates and recreates and transforms by Your will alone.”

© W.J. Martin†