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Church of England has a video per day for the season of Advent.
Go to: www.whywearewaiting.com
Click on the day of the month on the calendar on the Home Page.
It looks at local initiatives in response to environmental issues. The Anglican Environmental Network has given it publicity. Remember to turn your volume on.
First Thursday of Advent
December 3, 2009
The grass withers, the flower fades;
but the word of our God will stand forever.
—Isaiah 40:8
We are the grass of the field, the flowers in the meadow. Like the grass and flowers, we wither and fade. But if we are rooted in the Word of God, we have faith that after we wither and fade, there is opportunity for new growth. This reminds me of a song called “Closing Time,” from the mid-90’s band Semisonic in which part of the chorus says, “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” God’s promise to us through Jesus is a hope rooted in new beginnings. However, we must understand that to make room for new beginnings we have to let our old self die. The grass must whither and the flower must fade to make room for the resurgence of life. One of many things that the Living Word teaches us is that we are everlastingly being made new, being reborn, learning from our mistakes, putting the past behind us and making space for new beginnings. This is one reason why Advent is so important. We must prepare for new beginnings.
Caleb J. Lee, Diocese of East Carolina
Heavenly Father, prepare in me a space for the coming of the Lord. Hold me up me when I wither and fade. For you hold the promise that when I die in spirit, there is always opportunity for renewal and a return to your loving arms. Through Jesus Christ, our holy example of your eternal promise. Amen.
First Wednesday of Advent
December 2, 2009
Let the little children come to me; do not stop them.
—Mark 10:14
I count myself as blessed for having been raised in a culture that romanticizes childhood. Children are often considered to have about them a certain amount of innocence and purity. When we read texts like that from Mark, it is easy to assume that the gospel writers had the same ideas about childhood that we have.
But in reality, the gospel writers lived in a world that didn’t place children on any sort of pedestal. So far as society was concerned, children were virtually invisible. When Jesus picks up these children, blesses them, places them in the middle of things, he is challenging the disciples to open their hearts to those whom the world has judged to be non-persons.
Jesus suggests that, in some way, the faithfulness of our Christian discipleship is measured by the extent to which we welcome and care for those whom society has disregarded. To receive the vulnerable, outcast child is to receive Christ.
Nathan Finnin, Diocese of East Carolina
Lord, we are all your children. We thank you that you welcome us into your family, that you claim each of us in our baptism, and that you remember our names. Help us to always use the gifts that you have given us as we seek to answer your charge that we welcome every one of our brothers and sisters into your church. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
“The Lord is at Hand”
Every year the worship of Advent reminds us that the world is a place where terrible dark things happen. Advent comes in a world where children are not safe; where wars are afoot in too many countries; where the African continent is being ravaged by AIDS. Advent comes with the recognition that the world in general is no better this year than it was last year or the year before. Advent comes in the dark.
Often our world ignores this darkness. Indeed, by the time Christmas actually rolls around, the Christmas lights have already been on for weeks. But it is not so for the church. We take time in Advent to concentrate on the bleakness of the world. The church insists on beginning Advent in the dark. But why?
Let me ask you to envision Grand Central Station in New York City. I spent a week in New York about 15 years ago attending a cousin’s wedding, and often passed through Grand Central Station when on my way to go sightseeing. It is a magnificent building and in many ways beautifully restored, with a splendid marble hall with comfortable benches for waiting train passengers. When I was there, I discovered that this hall had been completely taken over much of the time by crowds of dirty and seemingly destitute people, many of whom appeared homeless. I also discovered that if you wanted to spend ten dollars for a cup of coffee, you could go up to a spiffy café on the second level gallery. There you could sit high above the concourse, surrounded, at Christmastime, I imagine, by Christmas trees and lights, oblivious to the misery below.
It’s very tempting for the church to act in exactly the same way, to consider herself lifted out of the general wretchedness that can characterize our human life, to a higher level of existence. Much of the theology that is taught in mass-market inspirational paperbacks and on television encourages us to think so. It is a simple “theology of blessing”: You are blessed; accept Christ as your personal saviour; be free from communicable disease; feel good about yourself and the world. This is the religion of the
second level gallery, from which you only have to come down when it’s your turn to take the train home.
The church’s ancient worship, however, calls this theology of blessing sharply into question. A belief that the church is a separate society of the saved up on the second level of the concourse can’t stand up to scrutiny in the season of Advent. Yet, for the church and the people of God—for Christians— who thought they’d been guaranteed prosperity as the ones chosen by God, the very church year, which begins with Advent, begins in the midst of darkness, and not light.
The prophet Isaiah, whom we read at Morning and Evening Prayer in Advent, teaches us this. “All our pleasant places have become ruins,” he writes (Isaiah 64:11). The historical setting for these words is an apparent hopelessness and despair. The ancient people of Israel have returned from exile in pagan Babylon only to find terrible conditions back home. God seems to have withdrawn himself from his people. “Zion has become a desolation”, Isaiah writes, “Our holy and beautiful house has been burned by fire.” “Wilt thou restrain thyself at these things, O Lord? Wilt thou keep silent? Thou hast hid thy face from us” (Isaiah 64:7,10-12). This is the powerful Old Testament theme of the God who has hidden himself. And we begin Advent with this message.
How can such Biblical passages speak to those of us who are simply waiting for our train, up on the second level of the gallery? It is often hard to feel personally overwhelmed by the silence of God in our warm and well-lit churches. The clue is found in the fact that Isaiah’s words are a cry of the whole people. When the church groans with Isaiah, “Thou hast hid thy face from us,” it speaks as one body with a common lot. If one suffers, all suffer.
Resistance movements have always understood this: Solidarity in Poland, the African National Congress in South Africa, and the American civil rights movement under Martin Luther King, for instance. These are not groups looking down from the second level. Rather, among them those who are better off stand shoulder-to-shoulder with those who suffer. No one is free and safe until all are free and safe.
As a Christian, no matter how upbeat I may feel personally, my place in the larger scheme of things is not just to bask in the continual sunshine of God’s presence, but, being rooted in repentance and prayer, to be with those who cry out at what seems to be the absence of God.
Advent calls the Church, not to sit on the second level enjoying herself, but to identify herself with victims everywhere, victims of poverty and racism, victims of tyranny and despotism, victims of crimes and disasters and psychoses and disease and every other kind of suffering. On behalf of them we cry
out with Isaiah, “Wilt thou restrain thyself at these things, O Lord? Wilt thou keep silent?”
Advent begins in the dark, but this is not the whole story. One of the most startling things about the faith we see in Scripture is that even when God seems to be absent his people continue to speak to him, complain to him, even declare their protest to him. Their crying out carries inside it a kind of hope against hope, a kind of expectation, a kind of insistence that God can do something to change things. In spite of the fact that God seems to be hidden, remembering what he did in the past continues to bring hope for what he will do in the future. The God who hides himself is still the God of promise and covenant. He is present even when he appears to be absent.
Yet God does not turn against his own nature. He may appear to hide himself, but believers cannot forget that he was once present in power and that he will be again. If God is hiding himself, he is hiding himself in order to make himself known. This paradox is found right through Scripture. As the French philosopher Pascal once wrote, “A religion that does not affirm that God is hidden is not true.” A religion that talks about God being obviously present all the time is not true. That would be a religion that takes God’s presence for granted, that had tried to use God’s presence for its own ends.
The cry of Isaiah teaches us something very different. Isaiah teaches us that the church cannot possess or control the presence of God. Only God is in control of his own presence. Faith teaches us to trust in God, in spite of appearances.
Where is God when it is dark? The church proclaims that he never hides himself without a purpose. Somewhere, somehow, in spite of every appearance his justice waits for the right moment to shine. At the heart of the Advent season is the light that shines in the darkness.
God did not stay where he was, high above the misery which often plagues his creation. But he came down, right into the middle of it, to a manger and a donkey and a cross. Jesus of Nazareth, whose Advent we welcome at Christmas, had power to heal every disease and drive out every demon. He had power to do this at every level, coming not only to the poor and wretched of the earth, but also to the lonely people in the bar on the second concourse, and even to the travelers rushing through Grand Central Station on the way to catch their train.
To each and all of them we bring this announcement: God will come, and his justice will prevail, and he will destroy evil and pain in all its forms, once and forever. To be a Christian is to live in expectation of that fulfillment of things. And the life of the church is lived as one with those in darkness. The life of the church is the living out, the embodiment of that promise: “The Lord is at hand.”
The Rev. David Garrett is Rector of the Parish of Cornwallis in the Diocese of Nova Scotia and PEI.
“Glory to God in highest heaven …and on Earth peace…” (Luke 2:14)
November weeks in Halifax have been sunny and pleasant. Still, the days are short and the night is a crisp cool. It seems a long time since June past when we walked the grounds on top of Montjuic in Barcelona. It was a beautiful arid sunlit day. We took the cable car to the fortress peak. The vista overlooking the port city of Barcelona was breathtaking. We could see for miles. Montjuic is an infamous fortress with a dark history for the people of Barcelona and the region of Catalunya. The fortifications would remind any Nova Scotian of the Citadel or York Redoubt. The fortress itself was the scene of awful atrocities committed by the State during both the Barcelona Rebellion of 1909 and Franco era Spain. Montjuic housed political prisoners and saw firing squads. Montjuic Castle, because of its past, has been chosen as the sight of an International Centre for Peace dedicated to fostering peace initiatives. Official literature describes the hopes for the future “The International Centre for Peace will be a central feature of the new site, occupying principally, the area of the old parade ground. The centre will be devoted to fostering peace through dialogue, training, and education, as well as research into conflict prevention, management and resolution and promoting a culture of peace.” These are values that resonate with a great many Canadians.
Time has a way of making its presence felt. It seems a long time between a June day in Barcelona and a late fall day in Nova Scotia. It also seems like a long time since the values of peace keeping and peace making were front and centre in Canada’s profile in the international community.
St. Luke, a writer of the Christmas story, understands that the birth of Jesus Christ has a way of pulling both God’s time and human time together into one decisive moment. At the birth of Jesus a heavenly host sings out “Glory to God in the Highest and Peace on Earth…” According to Luke, “heavenly host” means literally “a huge army from heaven”. A peaceful army of angels heralds the birth of Christ and the birth of a peaceful kingdom. God’s will is a reality, not only in heaven, but on earth as well.
Contemporary Christmas celebrations, often commercial and private in nature, may seem very distant from the original Gospel message of social peace. The good news is that it does not have to be as far off as it may at first appear. The people of Barcelona are transforming a once mighty fortress prison into a place that will be a tool for peace. Pray that our celebration of the birth of the “Prince of Peace” will transform us into a favored people impatient for peace on God’s Earth.
Peace to you, The Rev. Canon Rod Gillis Advent/Christmas 2009
Creator, kindle we pray in every human heart the true love of peace. Guide with your wisdom those who take counsel for the nations of the earth, that justice and peace may increase until the earth is filled with your covenant love. Amen
--A Bidding Prayer (adapted from the Book of Alternative Services p. 124)
