Advent Thoughts

[Last Judgement, Hieronymous Bosch]

Quite a few of the customs we associate with Advent in the Anglican Church are of relatively recent coinage. The medium blue vestments, for example, that one sees so often today appeared around 1990 to differentiate the season from the violet of Lent. The Advent wreath with its candles is a 19th century German domestic custom which was adopted and adapted to church use in the mid-twentieth century. Whilst Advent Carol Services, Christingle, and other popular devotions of this kind were largely byproducts of the Liturgical Movement of fifty years ago. Even the custom of preaching on heaven and hell, death and judgement, the Four Last Things, is not that old a custom going back, in the Anglican tradition to the mid-1800s.

Looking at the Prayer Book Epistles and Gospels for the season we see the older purpose of Advent - it is a season of expectation. This is further emphasized by the word that crops up repeatedly in Advent hymns - 'come' - usually as a prayer for the advent of the Messiah, the one who in His own body reconciled God and man. It reminds us that Christianity is an incarnational religion in which the supreme fact of history is, as the Christmas Gospel proclaims, that 'the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory; glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." By his incarnation Jesus reconciled God and man, perfecting our human nature, and then offering it as the one perfect sacrifice once offered for the sins of the world. Because Christ shared our human nature, His benefits can be applied to us with forgiveness, grace, mercy, and eternal life flowing through him to those who have been baptized an believe. Our union with Him through baptism and the Holy Spirit allows us to be incorporated into His life so that we escape that subjection sin, Satan, and death that came through Adam's disobedience.

As we go through Advent we hear about both the expectation that surrounded His first coming, and look forward to His second coming in which the Kingdom of God will be revealed to all people. We used to be taught to fear the judgement that Christ's return will bring on the living and dead, but if one has been baptized and truly believes, then His return is nothing to fear, because we have already been accept through Him.