by CCW | 22 November 2015 14:30
Times of transition signal the occasions for renewal, for a beginning again. Nowhere do we see those occasions for renewed beginnings more profoundly than on this Sunday which is wonderfully named, The Sunday Next Before Advent – proxima ante. What a wonderful pile of prepositions! They serve to mark a turning point.
‘Next’ and ‘before’ are the prepositions here which position us before the truth. What truth? The truth of God’s Word coming towards us awakens us to the promise and hope of God’s Word with us in Jesus Christ. This Sunday is really about the gathering up of the moments of spiritual grace in the year past and positioning us to begin again. Such is the hope and wonder of Advent.
The ancient gospel story that was traditionally read on this Sunday for centuries upon centuries captures profoundly the meaning of that gathering and that positioning. It is the story in John’s Gospel of the feeding of the multitude in the wilderness where there is “the gather[ing] up [of] the fragments” left-over from the feast “that nothing be lost.” Read at this time of endings and beginnings, the end of the Trinity season and the beginning of Advent, it signals at once a Eucharistic theme and an Eschatological theme, that is to say, the idea of “the end of all things.” Eschatology means the last things – death, judgment, heaven and hell. That idea of an eschatological end only serves to bring us to the one in whom we have our beginning and our end, Jesus Christ. He is “the alpha and the omega” of our lives, something which the very architecture of this church reminds us with the alpha and omega beams directly above your heads, the very building preaching to you, as it were, about your spiritual path and identity and embracing you in the mystery of our life in Christ.
In following Christ, we have the hope of the gathering up of the spiritual moments of his grace in our lives, whether it means the little steps of progress against besetting sins and temptations to wickedness or the deeper awareness of those sins and wickedness stirring us to a renewed determination to do better. Such is Advent now so soon upon us and before us starting next Sunday.
The review of the past is not simply about a litany of the events and circumstances of the year – that this happened and then this. Such a descriptive litany would be about nothing more than things external. No. What is looked for here is something inward and spiritual, a deeper understanding of ourselves that can only happen through the illuminating grace of God’s Word. Advent is about the turning of that Divine Word towards us, illuminating the darkness within and without our souls and lighting the path of our lives for us to follow God’s Word and Son. In the darkness of nature’s year, we are turned towards the light of God’s Word and Son.
The Gospel in our Canadian Prayer Book for this day, again from John’s Gospel, also points us to Christ and bids us to follow him. It, too, signals a turning point. This time of transition bids us reflect again on how well have we followed him in this year past. It does so, not to cast us into despair about the forms of the darkness within and without our souls, but to encourage us to begin again. That is why this Sunday, too, is sometimes called ‘Stir up Sunday’ from the collect. We are being recalled to the One in whom we have our beginning and our end, the One who turns to us and asks “what seek ye?’ The One who then bids us “come and see.” The One who says to Philip and to us, “follow me.”
In a way, the whole course of Christian life is captured in these moments. There is the moment of Christ’s turning to us and awakening in us the desire for something more than the dreary weariness of our world and day and of ourselves as captive to its persuasions and deceits. There is the moment of Christ’s invitation, “come and see” having awakened the desires of our hearts with his question, “what seek ye?” There is the moment of Christ’s turning to us and ultimately calling us to follow him.
All this is light and hope in the face of the darkness of human sin and evil, even in the face of the disturbing and seemingly endless litany of terrorism in our world and day. The near approach of Advent reminds us of something more. It reminds us about who we are in the sight of the God who turns to us in love and light so that love may be once again awakened in us, the counter to the darkness of sin and evil.
In the dreary darkness of nature’s year and in the darkness of death and destruction in our world, we look to the light, the light of God who turns to us and bids us “come and see.” The challenge every year is whether we will accept the invitation and follow him. To do so is to enter into the path of illuminating grace.
Fr. David Curry
Sunday Next Before Advent
November 22nd, 2015
Source URL: https://christchurchwindsor.ca/2015/11/22/sermon-for-the-sunday-next-before-advent-5/
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