Article
- Date:
- Wednesday 4th December 2024
Year C, The First Sunday of Advent - Place:
- Holy Trinity, Hurstpierpoint
- Service:
- Morning Prayer
- Readings:
- Isaiah 43.14-28
Revelation 21.1-8
The twin purposes of Advent are: first, to observe a period of fasting and penitence before Christmas, identical but shorter than that we are supposed to observe in Lent as a preparation for Easter; and, secondly, we are given the opportunity to put Christmas into its proper eschatological context, that is, we are to consider what Christmas is all about.
On the first point, there is little to be said: commercial pressure has pushed Christmas back from its 12 days after the commemoration of the birth of Jesus to the four weeks before the 25th. It would be very difficult even for the sternest liturgist or moralist, to ban feasting and Carols until Christmas Eve. All our communal Christmas activities take place before the big day.
On the second point, we should never be so frantic that we do not have the time to put Christmas into context in times of silence, reading Isaiah and praying.
As adults we have to be careful not to be drawn in to a Christmas ritual of Luke's Gospel which is detached from the grand purpose of the Incarnation of Christ. Just as few of us stop reading the biography of a famous person after the first chapter dealing with childhood, so we should put Incarnation into the Christian framework of Crucifixion, Resurrection and salvation.
In the Chapters written by the Second Isaiah, the Exiled chosen People are promised liberation and redemption, something new; and in our passage from Revelation we are promised a new heaven and a new earth and the conquest of death.
The incarnate Jesus is the embodiment of Christian hope; he is the Saviour of our broken world; he is the sacred icon of vulnerability which shows us how to be a servant king.
So enjoy Christmas before the big day, but do not forget why we are celebrating it; do not forget that because of the incarnation we are Easter children; and do not forget our duty to carry out the mission of Jesus to bring his good news to the whole world.