“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?”
The whole life of Christ is the Advent of God coming to us in the darkness of our sin and ignorance. The multitude answer their own question by identifying Jesus as “the Prophet of Nazareth of Galilee”; true but only in a very partial sense about Christ and the meaning of the Advent. Advent sets us on the pageant of learning the radical meaning of God’s coming and being with us in the Word made flesh, the babe of Bethlehem, and the crucified Christ of Calvary, and only so as to reveal him to us in his essential being as the Eternal Word and only-begotten Son of the Father, “God, of God; Light, of Light; Very God, of very God; Begotten, not made.”
What we expect and anticipate is not something worldly; it is not a social or human construct. It is not something of our making and doing. It is very much about the Advent of God who awakens us to something more beyond our devising and even our desiring. It reveals the radical truth of our humanity as found in the motions of God’s Word and Love towards us in the pageant of Revelation. Those motions do not eclipse or extinguish the law or what we can know through natural reason but awaken us to the radical fulfillment and meaning of our humanity through love: the love of God and the love of neighbour are inseparable.
“Owe no-one anything but to love one another,” Paul tells us. It sets before us the essential ethical teaching about our obligations and duties towards God in which we find the deeper meaning of human agency and dignity. The motions of God’s love in the Advent of Christ towards us set us in motion towards one another. Love, we might say, is motion towards others in seeking the good of one another. It is ultimately found in our life in Christ. We have to be alert to all of the various forms of that coming.
Cranmer’s insight in extending the Gospel reading makes clear that our ignorance belongs to the deeper darkness of our sinfulness. It is a powerful reminder of the tendency to twist and pervert the very purpose and meaning of the good things which God gives to us: the goodness of creation and the good things of redemption. The image is vivid and telling: making the house of prayer into a den of thieves. It is the constant attempt to make God subject to our whims and fancies. It is precisely that spirit which has to be cast out of our hearts and minds. And so, as Cranmer intuited, this scene reveals to us the strength of gentle Jesus “meek, and sitting upon an ass” who “cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple; and overthrew the tables of the money-changers.” It is the picture of the wrath of Christ that reveals the deeper love of Christ for us. It is meant to awaken us to the darkness of the far-spent night of human sin and folly. It is really about us but, more importantly, it signals the motions of God’s love who seeks our good which can only be found in “cast[ing] off the works of darkness and put[ting] on the armour of light.” Both motions are Christ in us, the motions of his grace towards us.
Our whole life is about our active waiting upon the motions of God towards us. We await expectantly and in anticipation but even more we participate in those motions of God who seeks our good and reveals his love for us, the love in which we find blessedness and joy. It is not a matter about which we can be indifferent. Now and always, it is time to awaken out of sleep, out of our complacency and our despair. Here is the Advent of hope and love coming to us in all of the wonder and beauty of the pageant of God’s Son and Word. Such is our blessedness – now and always – our blessedness in his coming to us.
“Blessed is he that cometh in the Name of the Lord”
Fr. David Curry
Advent Sunday, 2025