Day: November 30, 2025

“Blessed is he that cometh in the Name of the Lord”

Today’s Gospel is unique among the churches of Christendom historically speaking and in two ways. First, it was the English Church alone, early in that long period which we rather ambiguously and perhaps mistakenly call the Middle Ages, that chose this Gospel reading for Advent Sunday, and secondly, it was Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, the architect of the Prayer Book, who in the 16th century extended the reading to include the story of Christ’s cleansing of the temple in Jerusalem. Both features offer a profound insight into the meaning of Advent at once as the season of expectancy and waiting and as the doctrine of the Advent in the constant coming of God towards us in judgement and mercy, in humility and power, in truth and love, through the pageant of Revelation in the ordered life of the Church.

Advent is the motion of God’s Word coming to us now and always. That coming is threefold: the coming of God in carne, in the flesh of Christ’s holy Incarnation, the coming of God in judicio, in judgement and truth, and the coming of God in mente, in heart and mind. Advent is really about our constant waiting upon those motions of God coming towards us that awakens in us a sense of expectancy and preparation. In a way, the whole of our lives is about our waiting upon those motions of God coming towards us which is the real truth and meaning of human redemption. That is found precisely in the motions of God’s love towards us in Word and Sacrament, in judgement, and in humility and mercy, in grace and love, all conveyed through the Scriptures.

Paul in Romans highlights two things: first, that law is love, and secondly, that in the coming of God as light in the darkness of human sin and evil, we are bidden to walk in that light, “put[ting] on the armour of light” which is nothing less than “put[ting] on the Lord Jesus Christ.” Such is the meaning of “cast[ing] off the works of darkness and put[ting] on the armour of light” concentrated in the Collect that is to be prayed not just on this Sunday and week but throughout the Advent Season.

Christ comes “in great humility,” as the Gospel images from Zechariah the prophet make clear. His triumphal entrance into Jerusalem – the pageant of Palm Sunday – is not in pomp and circumstance but in “meek[ness] and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass.” This challenges all our worldly expectations of glory and majesty. We see at once the wonder and joy of the multitude who welcome him with cries of “Hosanna to the Son of David,” cries that convey the sense of majesty even as we know only too well how those cries of rejoicing will be turned to cries of “Crucify. Crucify.” Such is our darkness, to be sure, the darkness of sin and ignorance. Something of both those aspects of fallen humanity is present in the bewilderment of the crowd, for “when he was come into Jerusalem all the city was moved, saying, Who is this?”

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