In November our liturgical year enters its final phase, the Kingdom season, culminating in the last Sunday of the season dedicated to Christ the King. (Alfred Agius has written about Christ’s kingdom in the last two pages.) Then we start the cycle again, with the Advent season, the beginning of the liturgical year leading up to Christmas.
For most of us in the West, ‘leading up to Christmas’ has become the main concern of Advent—the few weeks spent preparing food, planning parties, decorating buildings and the like for the festivities of Christmas, not to mention preparations in church for Crib services, Carol services and so forth. Even Christians tend to be caught up in the frenzy of material preparation.
The period of Advent in the ancient church, and even now in the Orthodox churches, was a time of spiritual preparation and involves fasting as a discipline as in Lent, before Easter. ‘Prepare ye the way of the Lord’ being the overarching theme of Advent, the preparation in the past emphasised spiritual preparation. Our lectionary for that season is a great help to us in our preparation, if we choose to pay attention to it.
When we approach the four Sundays in Advent (the word literally meaning ‘the coming’ and beginning this year on 27th November), it is worth reminding ourselves of the three-fold meaning of Christ’s coming in the past, the future and the present: as a baby in Bethlehem to do his Father’s mission in occupied Palestine; the awaited arrival in his Second Coming as a judge; and, the often forgotten but vital, coming into the heart of each of us, day by day.
If you look carefully at the readings set for the four Sundays, we can see how the Bible addresses all these three elements. Cranmer elegantly combines them in his Collect for Advent (see the box below) redolent with references from the Bible:
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.
The present: ‘may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light ‘ The past: ‘in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility ‘ The Future: ‘in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious Majesty, to judge both the quick and the dead’.
For each Sunday in Advent, and for the candle lit on Advent wreaths if used, there is traditionally a special theme : hope, love, joy and peace. However, with the three year cycle now used, the separation of these themes is not strictly reflected in the readings.
Hope is about things to come; in the case of the Jews in Jesus’ time, the hope, the longing, was for a Messiah. ‘In the time of this mortal life’ and ‘in the fullness of time’ God sends deliverance. But it is also about the judgement day and resurrection. ‘The time appointed’ is a concern expressed in the gospels as well as the epistles. It is not for us to know, as we are told by Jesus himself but we are to be ever diligent. So it is ‘hope’ that helps us to prepare ourselves and ‘keep ourselves going’.
On the second Sunday, we focus on John the Baptist, the supreme example of the call to prepare the way of the Lord. Many prophets had also been exhorting people to be prepared, and explaining what the kingdom of the Messiah might look like: every valley will be exalted, people will be comforted, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed to all—as we may readily recall from well-known verses from Isaiah immortalised in Handel’s Messiah. The third Sunday is Gaudete (Rejoice!) Sunday, when a pink candle might be lit, contrasting with the violet of the other three if using that ‘colour scheme’. ‘Rejoice in the Lord Alway (Ph 4:4)’ are the opening words of the Introit Antiphon for that Sunday for Roman Catholics and is the New Testament reading in Year B in our lectionary.
It is only on the fourth Sunday that we move closer thematically to the Christmas story. The archangel Gabriel appearing to Mary telling her of being chosen to bear Jesus only occurs in Luke’s gospel, so in years B and C, we have the gospel readings from Luke, covering the Annunciation and Mary’s visit to Elizabeth. The angel appearing to Joseph asking him not to cast aside his fiancée Mary because of her pregnancy appears only in Matthew’s gospel and is read in Year A. It is good that we are reminded of Joseph’s pivotal role here, caring and protecting the mother and child, a role often relegated to the background in the Christmas story.
This year Christmas comes a full week after the fourth Sunday of Advent. So for five weeks starting at the end of November we can intentionally and seriously consider how we ‘prepare the way of the Lord’. The Anglican church is embarking on a year of active seeking to discern what the Kingdom of God might look like in Langley. Maybe all the churches in Langley could reflect on how to work even more closely together, as we pray ‘Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven’.
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