American Anglican Council: Recovering our identity in Christ this Advent

GAFCON Chairman's Advent Letter

To the Faithful of the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans and friends
from Archbishop Eliud Wabukala, Primate of Kenya and Chairman of the GAFCON Primates’ Council

Advent 2014

‘We look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.’ (2 Corinthians 4:18)

My dear brothers and sisters,

Greetings in the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ, ‘the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end’.

During this Advent Season we shall be preparing for the joyful celebration of the first coming of our Lord Jesus, but let us also rejoice that we have the promise of his second coming in glorious majesty as Lord, Saviour and Judge, and be willing to stake our lives on what we do not yet see, the fulfilment of the promises of God.

It was this confidence that kept the Apostle Paul from despair despite all the setbacks and suffering of his apostolic ministry and with deep insight he cuts right through earth bound ways of thinking when he writes ‘For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal’ (2 Corinthians 4:18).

This is a truly radical perspective. It brings our lives into line with what is ultimately real and gives us a hope that is not defeated by immediate challenges and loss. This is true whatever the crisis that confronts us and we must continue to pray for those whose lives have been devastated by the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, but the difference biblical hope makes is seen most clearly when persecution and violence are unleashed.

As I write these letters, I find that very often I need to emphasise the need to pray for and stand with our bothers and sisters who are experiencing heart-rending suffering as radical Islamic influence grows in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Here in Kenya, al-Shabab gunmen have just murdered twenty-eight non-Muslim passengers from a bus they ambushed in northern Kenya. In some parts of the world Christian communities now live with the constant threat of violent death. One of the most shocking attacks in recent weeks was the burning alive of a young Pakistani Christian man Sajjeed Mashah and his pregnant wife Shama Bibi in a brick kiln near Lahore. How do Christian communities manage to carry on in such circumstances unless they look to ‘the things that are unseen’? As we pray for those who suffer, let us resolve to be of the same mind and to be faithful to Christ wherever he has placed us.

The threat of atrocity is now truly global. Following the jihadist killing of a young soldier on duty at Canada’s national war memorial in Ottawa, I was moved by the gentle yet bold response of Bishop Charlie Masters, recently appointed Moderator of the Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC). He spoke of shock and grief, but also how the founding fathers had named the country and he said “they called it the Dominion of Canada, based on Psalm 72:8 ‘he shall have dominion from sea to sea…’ and that was speaking about the Lord Jesus, that he has dominion in this country”. For Bishop Charlie, part of the response to this murder was national repentance to bring the country back to its founders’ vision. The dominion of the Lord Jesus Christ is a reality unrecognized by many, but one day all creation will bow the knee and the greatest service we can do for our nations is to win them for Jesus Christ by the proclamation of the glorious gospel of the Prince of Peace.

The Anglican Network in Canada is part of the Anglican Church in North America which was formed following our first Global Anglican Future Conference in 2008. Such steps of radical faith demonstrate our trust in the Advent hope of the ultimate triumph of the gospel. For the New Testament writers, the expectation of Christ’s return was an encouragement not to waver from sound doctrine or godly living, but on crucial issues such as sexual morality and the uniqueness of Jesus as Saviour and Son of God we are in a Communion where there is no longer a common mind.

Some say this does not matter. For instance, the ‘Bishops in Dialogue’ group after their Coventry meeting earlier this year claimed that we must maintain visible unity despite everything because ‘now we see through a glass, darkly’ (1 Corinthians 13:12). In other words, things will only become clear in heaven. This is a bad mistake. It is true that there is much about our future state that we do not yet understand, but God has given us the inspired Scriptures as a lamp to our feet and a light to our path (Ps.119:105). Our future hope cannot be turned into an excuse for compromise or silence when Scripture is clear. For Anglicans the collegial mind of the Communion on sexuality and Scripture remains the orthodox position as strongly reaffirmed by the 1998 Lambeth Conference which continues to call us to obedience and pastoral responsibility. Dialogue is no substitute for doctrine.

Despite these challenges, I am confident that our efforts are not in vain. The crucial contribution of GAFCON to the future is that in an increasingly confused Communion it has a clear confessional basis in the Jerusalem Statement and Declaration which keeps the gospel at its heart. And where the gospel is, there will be life.

So may the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ establish your hearts in all that is good, make you strong and courageous in his service and bring us all with great joy to that day when the Church Militant here on earth shall become the great Church Victorious.

Archbishop Eliud Wabukala, Primate of Kenya and Chairman of the GAFCON Primates Council

4th Sunday of Advent: Joseph's Song

Third Sunday of Advent: There is No Rose of Such Virtue

GAFCON Chairman's Advent Letter

To the Faithful of the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans and friends
from Archbishop Eliud Wabukala, Primate of Kenya
and Chairman of the GAFCON Primates’ Council
Advent 2013


Be strong and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the Lord! Psalm 31:24

My dear brothers and sisters,

Greetings in the precious name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ!

I am so thankful to the Lord for his goodness to us as we met here in Nairobi for GAFCON 2013. It was a great gathering in which we saw unmistakable signs of God’s blessing. Our expectations were exceeded in many ways as 1,358 delegates from 37 nations gathered for what I can only describe as a foretaste of heaven. My prayer was that we would see the glory of God and we did as we enjoyed a wonderful time of worship, prophetic bible teaching and mutual encouragement. It was truly a mountain top experience in which the Lord Jesus was gloriously present, but we knew we could not stay there. We have to come down from the mountain to face the challenges ahead.

And so we have. The Church of England has just released what is known as the Pilling Report, the conclusions of a Working Group commissioned by the House of Bishops to report and make recommendations on issues of human sexuality. I am sorry to say that it is very flawed. If this report is accepted I have no doubt that the Church of England, the Mother Church of the Communion, will have made a fateful decision. It will have chosen the same path as The Episcopal Church of the United States and the Anglican Church of Canada with all the heartbreak and division that will bring.

The problem is not simply that the Report proposes that parish churches should be free to hold public services for the blessing of homosexual relationships, but the way it justifies this proposal. Against the principle of Anglican teaching, right up to and beyond the Lambeth Conference of 1998, it questions the possibility that the Church can speak confidently on the basis of biblical authority and sees its teaching as essentially provisional. So Resolution 1.10 of the 1998 Lambeth conference, which affirmed that homosexual practice was ‘incompatible with Scripture’ and said it could ‘not advise the legitimisation or blessing of same sex relationships’, is undermined both in practice and in principle.

The proposal to allow public services for the blessing of same sex relationships is seen as a provisional measure and the Report recommends a two-year process of ‘facilitated conversation’ throughout the Church of England which is likened to the ‘Continuing Indaba’ project. This should be a warning to us because it highlights that the unspoken assumption of Anglican Indaba is that the voice of Scripture is not clear. This amounts to a rejection of the conviction expressed in the Thirty-nine Articles that the Bible as ‘God’s Word written’ is a clear and effective standard for faith and conduct.

As a matter of conscience, one member of the Working Group, the Rt Rev’d Keith Sinclair, Bishop of Birkenhead, was unable to sign the Report. He issued a dissenting statement which I strongly endorse as an alternative way forward which honours the authority of Scripture and expresses a deep pastoral concern for the transforming power of the gospel in a society which is moving into ever greater confusion about sexual morality and identity.

We should pray earnestly that the English House of Bishops steps back from endorsing this Report, but the developing situation in the Church of England, the historic Mother Church of the Communion, underlines the need for our Global Fellowship to build on the success of GAFCON 2013 and implement our commitments. As we noted in the Nairobi Communiqué, the GFCA is becoming an ‘ important and effective instrument of Communion during a period in which other instruments of Communion have failed both to uphold gospel priorities in the Church, and to heal the divisions among us.’

As Chairman I am committed to seeing our vital work of promoting and defending the gospel expand. During the coming year we shall be working to increase our organizational effectiveness, set up global networks and improve our communications, but we also need the involvement of every member in prayer, giving and active engagement with our global vision. We are at heart a spiritual movement of renewal, looking to the Lord who graciously revives his Church and this is a reality that flows out of the daily discipleship of each one.

I write with deep gratitude to you all for your prayer and fellowship in this great project which the Lord has called us. This Advent Season is a reminder to live as those who are ready for the Lord’s return in power and glory, as Saviour and as Judge. So let us be of good hope, confident in the ultimate triumph of God’s purposes in Jesus Christ.

May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word (2 Thess. 2:16,17).

The Most Rev Dr Eliud Wabukala
Primate of Kenya and Chairman of the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans

Posted December 7, 2013

Second Sunday in Advent: On Jordan's Bank the Baptist's Cry

Second Sunday of Advent

"Look! He's coming back!" (ESJ for Advent)

I have often cited this quote from E. Stanley Jones's sermon, "Christ is the Answer." It is particularly pertinent during this first week of Advent.

I stood in the Mosque of Saint Sophia, that amazing bit of architecture once a Christian church and now a Mohammedan mosque in Istanbul, the city that was once Constantinople. All the Christian symbols had been wiped out, and Arabic lettering had been put in. As I stood there, I looked up over the altar place at the dome, and my heart stood still. I grabbed the arm of a friend. I said, "Look! He's coming back!" I could see that the daubs of the centuries were wearing off, and there was the figure of the ascending Christ coming back again through the daubs of the centuries. "O," I said, "you can't wipe him out. He's coming back." This man overthrew empires, and everything that doesn't fit into his kingdom is doomed. Every tyranny that has come has broken itself upon the silent power of this strange, silent man. My God! What a man!

He's Lord of death. A Christian preacher was preaching in the bazaars of India, and a Mohammedan said, "Padre Sahib, we have a proof in our religion that you haven't got in yours. We can go to Mecca and find the tomb of Mohammed, but when you go to Palestine you can't be sure you've got the tomb of Jesus." "Yes," said the Christian preacher, "you're right. We have no tomb in Christianity because we have no corpse." . . .

In India they repeat montras. A priest will whisper a montra into the ear of his disciple. The disciple doesn't know what it means, but he repeats it. It's his life charm. . . . I'd like to whisper into your ear three words. Take it. It's a life montra. When in trouble, repeat it. When facing a dilemma, repeat it. When facing sin, repeat it. When facing disaster, repeat it. When facing temptation, repeat it: "Jesus is Lord." Take those three words and go into the tomorrow, and into the future. And there is no future. It's all present. Jesus is Lord.

On the meaning and purpose of the Collects, Advent Edition (1)

First-time worshipers, unfamiliar with Anglican tradition, are often confused by the term, "collect." Seeing it in the order of worship, they might tend to think of it in terms of "collection," as in the taking up of the weekly offering. To better understand the meaning of the Collect, and appreciate its place and purpose in worship, here is some helpful background information from C. Frederick Barbee and Paul F.M. Zahl (Forward to The Collects of Thomas Cranmer, Eerdmans Publishing 1999).

What is a Collect? The origin of the term collecta, while rather obscure, refers to the "gathering of the people together" as well as to the "collecting up" of the petitions of individual members of the congregation into one prayer. This at first extemporaneous prayer would later also be connected to the Epistle and Gospel appointed for the day. A Collect is a short prayer that asks "for one thing only" (Fortescue) and is peculiar to the liturgies of the Western Churches, being unknown in the Churches of the East. It is also a literary form (an art comparable to the sonnet) usually, but not always, consisting of five parts. 

I. The Address 

The invocation is to the Father. "And in that day ye shall ask me nothing . . . whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it to you" (St. John 16:23). The exceptions to this rule are Advent III, Lent I, and St. Stephen's Day, when the Son is addressed directly. Trinity Sunday also stands outside this maxim, since in that case there is no distinction of Persons. 

II. The Acknowledgment 

This gives "the foundation of doctrine upon which our request is made" (Dean Goulburn). It reflects some quality of God related to that which we shall be asking Him in the Petition: His power, His grace, His transcendence, His mercy. In a few cases, however, what is acknowledged is our weakness or frailty or sinfulness. 

III. The Petition 

Here is the actual prayer concerning basic needs: cleansing, forgiveness, protection, guidance, comfort, holiness, love. 

IV. The Aspiration 

Not appearing in all Collects, this is introduced by the conjunction "that." An example is found in Trinity XXI: pardon and peace are desired so that we may be better fitted for God's service. The petition ("pardon and peace") is not an end in itself but claims a higher purpose in the aspiration. 

V. The Pleading 

". . . through Jesus Christ our Lord." Christ is our only mediator and advocate. Through Jesus alone can we draw near to the Father. The pleading historically contained the doxological words, "who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end." This ending was so well-known that Archbishop Cranmer either omitted it or placed "&c" in lieu of it. But this omission led to forgetting, and the full wording was restored to some Collects in 1662 and, finally, to all of them in the 1979 American edition. 

Here is the pattern for the familiar and much-loved Collect for Purity from the service of Holy Communion: 

I. Almighty God,
II. unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid,
III. cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit,
IV. that we may perfectly love thee, and worthily magnify thy holy name,
V. through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen. 

Another example is that of Trinity XIX: 

I. O God,
II. forasmuch as without thee we are not able to please thee
III. mercifully grant that thy Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts,
IV.
V. through Jesus Christ our Lord. 

The Collects are not only necessary to the liturgy, but also are part of the pastoral tradition of the Church. The Prayer Book Collects are a priceless part of English-speaking Christianity. They are also for the present use of everyday Christians in the trials and testings of life. . . .

The Collect for the First Sunday of Advent is also traditionally prayed each day during the Advent season.

Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

This Collect, according to Barbee and Zahl, "achieves an astonishing feat. It ties together not only the first coming and the final coming of God -- the two advents of Jesus Christ -- but it binds together our human present with the future, which is even now rushing towards us." Cranmer's purpose in devising this prayer was to emphasize "that our present life is the incubator for our future and enduring life. And every moment of this life is accompanied by Him who visited this planet in great humility." Praying this Collect daily throughout Advent keeps our hearts and minds focused on that promised future which gives meaning and purpose to our life in the present. Christ came first in humility, as one of us. He will come again in glorious majesty and we will share in his ultimate victory, as John assures us in his first epistle, "Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:2).

As the Second Sunday of Advent approaches, the Collect reminds us that repentance, turning away from our sins and turning toward God, is part and parcel to our preparation for the coming of Christ.

Merciful God, who sent your messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Older editions of the Prayer Book have a different Collect for this week. In later editions, this prayer was moved to the next to last Sunday of the Christian Year, designated "Scripture Sunday."

Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Christmas Eve: A guide through unknown lands

Opening Sentence

Seek him who made the Pleiades and Orion, and turns deep darkness into the morning, and darkens the day into night; who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out upon the surface of the earth: The Lord is his name. Amos 5:8

Collect of the Day

O God, you have caused this holy night to shine with the brightness of the true Light: Grant that we, who have known the mystery of that Light on earth, may also enjoy him perfectly in heaven; where with you and the Holy Spirit he lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.

Psalter: Psalm 45, 46

Lessons: Isaiah 60:1-6, Galatians 3:23-4:7, Matthew 1:18-25

"Do not fear to take Mary your wife. . . ." How can a man have God in the house without being afraid? Just think of lying awake at night, hearing your wife breathe, and knowing that the world's heart is beating in her womb! The angel was fearsome, but in the presence of him who lay under Mary's heart the angels covered their eyes. "Joseph, son of David, do not fear."

It is this nearness which we have made into a mere detail in our Christmas observance. For his nearness in the gospel is not a pretty picture; it is a nearness equally as earthy and manifest as in Bethlehem or Nazareth. A word on our lips, bread on our table, wine in our flasks. But the angels do not dare look upon him, the worlds quake at his name. Immanuel! What would happen if all those for whom he is a beautiful legend, a sentimental condiment at Christmas, discovered his true identity?

Our text contains a mystery which elicits both a smile and some fear: The Almighty desired Joseph's protection. He lit the stars over Joseph's house, but Joseph had to provide him with a refuge in that house. From this distant God came angels enough to cause Herod's entire army to grow faint; yet they say that Joseph must flee to Egypt for safety, for the government is out to get the child who is David's son.

We know little about Joseph's thought; we know him best by what he did. . . . the Joseph of the Bible took Mary along first of all to Bethlehem, then to Egypt, and from Egypt back to Israel. Could even a refugee family in our time make such a wilderness journey without an excess of strength and determination? So the texts for today refer not only to Mary, the mother, the church. They also speak of Joseph, the descendant of a king, a man of skillful hands, of firm will, of indomitable powers, a guide through unknown lands. The fact that God is with us is not, therefore, just a salubrious concept for those who think we are dealing here with a pretty idea or childish dream. It summons us to the defense of the gospel.

Olov Hartman

The Birth of God

Joseph's Song

Friday in Advent 4: The role of faith

Opening Sentence

In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Isaiah 40:3

Collect of the Day

Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation, that your Son Jesus Christ, at his coming, may find in us a mansion prepared for himself; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Psalter: Psalm 93, 96

Lessons: Jeremiah 31:10-14; Galatians 3:15-22; Luke 1:67-80, Matthew 1:1-17

Faith, as Paul presents it in Galatians as "the promise by faith in Jesus Christ" that is "given to those who believe" is not merely mental assent or rudimentary human response to God's gracious initiative in giving his Son to die for our sins. True faith, the faith through which salvation is wrought in the life of the believer, involves abandoning oneself so completely and utterly to Christ as to be literally "crucified with Christ," to use the phrase Paul uses earlier (Galatians 2:20). Such abandonment of oneself is impossible for fallen human beings, left to their own devices. Only God, who by his grace created human beings in his image and likeness, is able by that same grace to awaken faith within the heart of his chosen ones.

It may even be something of a misnomer to say faith is a condition of salvation, although such a term has been used in times past when, perhaps, it carried less humanistic connotations. Christ's sacrifice on the cross is effective for all humanity. This is not to say that all persons are saved whether they know it or not. To the contrary, only those with faith who accept this gracious gift will enter into salvation and eternal life; those without faith who reject it will enter into judgment and eternal torment. Ultimately, however, it is the cross itself, being an act of unspeakable self-giving on the part of God, which determines the destiny of all humanity, faithful and unfaithful alike.

Salvation is not possible without faith. Faith, however, is impossible without God's grace awakening it in the heart of the believer. Faith, then, is not (as some present-day fundamentalists claim) the "necessary first step" in salvation. The "first step" was taken by Christ at Calvary and it was neither necessary on God's part nor requested on humanity's part. Rather, it was an act of total self-giving by a God whose love, mercy, and grace were so boundless that he would literally move heaven and earth to win back those whom he created in his image.

The role of faith can best be described as that of the necessary means through which God effects salvation in the life of the believer. He who gave of and abandoned himself completely, unconditionally, and sacrificially to rescue a fallen race requires nothing more and nothing less than the same complete, unconditional, and sacrificial act of self-giving and self-abandonment (literally being "crucified with Christ") on the part of those to whom his gift of salvation is offered.

(JAG)

Love Came Down at Christmas

Thursday in Advent 4: The supremacy of faith

Opening Sentence

Watch, for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or in the morning, lest he come suddenly and find you asleep. Mark 13:35, 36

Collect of the Day

Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation, that your Son Jesus Christ, at his coming, may find in us a mansion prepared for himself; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Psalter: Psalm 80

Lessons: 2 Samuel 7:18-29, Galatians 3:1-14, Luke 1:57-66

With these words Paul makes faith in God the supreme worship, the supreme allegiance, the supreme obedience, and the supreme sacrifice. Whoever is an orator, let him develop this topic. He will see that faith is something omnipotent, and that its power is inestimable and infinite; for it attributes glory to God, which is the highest thing that can be attributed to Him. To attribute glory to God is to believe in Him, to regard Him as truthful, wise, righteous, merciful, and almighty, in short, to acknowledge Him as the Author and Donor of every good. Reason does not do this, but faith does. It consummates the Deity, not in the substance of God but in us. For without faith God loses his glory, wisdom, righteousness, truthfulness, mercy, etc., in us; in short, God has none of his majesty or divinity where faith is absent. Nor does God require anything greater of man than that he attribute to Him His glory and His divinity; that is, that he regard Him, not as an idol but as God, who has regard for him, listens to him, shows mercy to him, helps him, etc. When He has obtained this, God retains His divinity sound and unblemished; that is, He has whatever a believing heart is able to attribute to Him. To be able to attribute such glory to God is wisdom beyond wisdom, righteousness beyond righteousness, religion beyond religion, and sacrifice beyond sacrifice. From this it can be understood what great righteousness faith is and, by antithesis, what a great sin unbelief is.

Therefore faith justifies because it renders to God what is due Him; whoever does this is righteous. The laws also define what it means to be righteous in this way: to render to each what is his. For faith speaks as follows: "I believe Thee, God, when Thou dost speak." What does God say? Things that are impossible, untrue, foolish, weak, absurd, abominable, heretical, and diabolical--if you consult reason. For what is more ridiculous, foolish, and impossible than when God says to Abraham that he is to get a son from the body of Sarah, which is barren and already dead?

Thus when God proposes the doctrines of faith, He always proposes things that are simply impossible and absurd--if, that is, you want to follow the judgment of reason. It does indeed seem ridiculous and absurd to reason that in the Lord's Supper the body and the blood of Christ are presented, that Baptism is "the washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit" (Titus 3:5), that Christ the Son of God was conceived and carried in the womb of the Virgin, that He was born, that He suffered the most ignominious of deaths on the cross, that He was raised again, that He is now sitting at the right hand of the Father, and that He now has "authority in heaven and on earth" (Matt. 28:18).

Martin Luther

Lectures on Galatians

Hark! The Herald Angels Sing

Wednesday in Advent 4: The gospel before the gospel

Opening Sentence

Their sound has gone out into all lands, and their message to the ends of the world. Psalm 19:4

Commemoration: Thomas the Apostle

Almighty and everliving God, who strengthened your apostle Thomas with sure and certain faith in your Son's resurrection: Grant us so perfectly and without doubt to believe in Jesus Christ, our Lord and our God, that our faith may never be found wanting in your sight; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Psalter: Psalm 72

Lessons: 2 Samuel 7:1-17, Titus 2:11-3:8, Luke 1:39-56

[Mary's song] is the gospel before the gospel, a fierce shout of triumph thirty weeks before Bethlehem, thirty years before Calvary and Easter. It goes with a swing and a clap and a stamp. It's all about God, and it's all about revolution. And it's all because of Jesus -- Jesus who's only just been conceived, not yet born, but who has made Elisabeth's baby leap for joy in her womb and has made Mary giddy with excitement and hope and triumph. In many cultures today, it's the women who really know how to celebrate, to sing and dance, with their bodies and voices saying things far deeper than words. That's how Mary's song comes across here.

Yes, Mary will have to learn many other things as well. A sword will pierce her soul, she is told when Jesus is a baby. She will lose him for three days when he's twelve. She will think he's gone mad when he's thirty. She will despair completely for a further three days in Jerusalem, as the God she now wildly celebrates seems to have deceived her (that, too, is part of the same Jewish tradition she draws on in this song). All of us who sing her song should remember these things too. But the moment of triumph will return with Easter and Pentecost, and this time it won't be taken away.

Why did Mary launch into a song like this? What has the news of her son got to do with God's strong power overthrowing the power structures of the world, demolishing the mighty and exalting the humble?

Mary and Elisabeth shared a dream. It was the ancient dream of Israel: the dream that one day all that the prophets had said would come true. One day Israel's God would do what he had said to Israel's earliest ancestors: all nations would be blessed through Abraham's family. But for that to happen, the powers that kept the world in slavery had to be toppled. Nobody would normally thank God for blessing if they were poor, hungry, enslaved and miserable. god would have to win a victory over the bullies, the power-brokers, the forces of evil which people like Mary and Elisabeth knew all too well, living as they did in the dark days of Herod the Great, whose casual brutality was backed up with the threat of Rome. Mary and Elisabeth, like so many Jews of their time, searched the scriptures, soaked themselves in the psalms and prophetic writings which spoke of mercy, hope, fulfilment, reversal, revolution, victory over evil, and of God coming to the rescue at last.

All of that is poured into this song, like a rich, foaming drink that comes bubbling over the edge of the jug and spills out all round. Almost every word is a biblical quotation such as Mary would have known from childhood. Much of it echoes the song of Hannah in 1 Samuel 2, the song which celebrated the birth of Samuel and all that God was going to do through him. Now these two mothers-to-be celebrate together what God is going to do through their sons, John and Jesus.

+N.T. Wright

Luke for Everyone

Magnificat (Russian)

Tuesday in Advent 4: Something about Mary

Opening Sentence

In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Isaiah 40:3

Collect of the Day

Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation, that your Son Jesus Christ, at his coming, may find in us a mansion prepared for himself; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Psalter: Psalm 66, 67

Lessons: 1 Samuel 2:1-10, Titus 2:1-10, Luke 1:26-38

From our human perspective, we have two first impressions concerning Mary. First, she seems to be a simple peasant girl. She does not have much in the way of worldly wealth. Second, she seems to be a quiet and proper virgin, unassuming and virtuous. But God did not choose Mary because of her poverty or her virtue. From God's perspective, Mary is the "favored one." But if not because of her poverty or her virtue, why?

Long before she knew anything about becoming the Mother of our Lord, there was something about Mary that "found favor with God." But this tells us more about God than it does about Mary. God does not see things the same way humans see them. He finds favor with those with whom he finds favor, not because such persons deserve it, but because God himself longs to be Emmanuel, "God with us." Mary found favor with God not for any merit on her own part, but because God wanted to be Emmanuel in her life. Mary's virtue and purity are a response to God's gracious initiative. Everything about her called attention not to herself, but to God. That is why she was "greatly troubled" when the Angel Gabriel gave her such high praise. The Holy Spirit so permeated her inmost being that Christ was not only formed in her, but was also born of her.

Mary is the very embodiment of sanctification. In her, we see a woman wholly consecrated to God in spirit, soul, and body (1 Thessalonians 5:23). Her life has become a perpetual sacrifice of praise to God, as witnessed by her prayer of thanksgiving to God, the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55). Sanctification draws her into such union with God that only God's will, not her own, matters. Thus, she can say without reservation, "Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word."

In the end, it is not "something about Mary" but everything about God that leads the sanctified soul to say, in humble obedience, "I am the servant of the Lord. Let your will be done. Let your image and likeness--Christ himself--be formed in me and let the reality of Emmanuel be given life through me."

(JAG)

Mary, Did You Know?

Monday in Advent 4: No comforting ointment without the fire of reproof

Opening Sentence

Watch, for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or in the morning, lest he come suddenly and find you asleep. Mark 13:35, 36

Collect of the Day

Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation, that your Son Jesus Christ, at his coming, may find in us a mansion prepared for himself; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Psalter: Psalm 61, 62

Lessons: Zephaniah 3:14-20, Titus 1, Luke 1:1-25

One who remains uncorrected, and who does not correct others, becomes like a limb which putrefies, and corrupts the whole body. It is like an inept physician who, when a limb had already begun to be corrupted, placed ointment immediately upon it, without having first burnt the wound. So it is with the pastor or any other person having received the duty of care of souls, on seeing someone putrefying from the corruption of mortal sin. If one applies to him the ointment of soft words of encouragement alone, without reproof, one would never cure him. The putrefacation would rather spread to the other members, who, with him, form one body under the same pastor. But if he were a good physician who cares about those souls, as were those glorious pastors of old, he would not give comforting ointment without the fire of reproof. . . . Many do not act this way today, but rather when they see evil, they pretend not to see.

Catherine of Sienna

A Treatise on Prayer

Emmanuel

Fourth Sunday in Advent: God's true home

Opening Sentence

In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Isaiah 40:3

Collect of the Day: Fourth Sunday of Advent

Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation, that your Son Jesus Christ, at his coming, may find in us a mansion prepared for himself; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Psalter: Psalm 89:1-8

Lessons (Sunday Lectionary): 2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16; Romans 16:25-27; Luke 1:26-38

David thought it was a good idea. He wanted to build a dwelling place for God which was, at least, comparable with his own "house of cedar" (2 Samuel 7:2). After all, why should the Lord of the universe dwell in a tent while the ruler of such a small kingdom enjoyed such plush accommodations? David was embarrassed by this seeming inequity and wanted to correct it. His heart was in the right place.

God, however, saw things from a different perspective.

Through the prophet Nathan, the Lord said to David, "Would you build me a house to dwell in? I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent for my dwelling" (2 Samuel 7:5-6). All those many years, God had never complained about his accommodations. By dwelling in a tent, he was able to move freely among his people. In the days of the tabernacle, the people did not have to come to God. Rather, God would come to his people. His true home was with them.

When Solomon succeeded David as king in Israel, he did build a house for God, a magnificent temple in Jerusalem which became the center of religious life for the nation. It only seemed right, for God had told David that Solomon would build the temple, hadn't he?

Well, not really.

God said to David that "the LORD will make you a house. When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men, but my steadfast love will not depart from him" (2 Samuel 7:11b-15a).

The reference to David's "offspring" encompasses far more than just Solomon, David's immediate successor. It refers to the whole "house" which the LORD promises to "make," that is, the house of David from whence will come the Messiah who will take upon himself the iniquity of all the people, endure the discipline required for it, and demonstrate through his suffering the steadfast love of God.

The true "offspring" of David, the one who will "build a house" for God's name, is Jesus. In him is embodied the not only the true character and nature of God, but also the true heart of God which yearns for fellowship with his people. From the very beginning, God's desire was to be "Emmanuel," God with us.

When the temple was built, however, it dramatically changed the dynamic of the relationship between God and his people. Rather than God coming to the people, the people had to come to God. God's presence was no longer symbolized by a tent, free to roam about. It was instead symbolized by a huge, ornate, stone structure in the heart of Jerusalem. Now, God's presence was restricted and confined within the temple. In time, it was further restricted to the people who were most closely associated with the temple, namely the priests and other religious leaders who drew their livelihood from the religious cultus. As these elites became more and more important to the maintenance of temple life, they became enamored with, and inevitably corrupted by, its treasures. Meanwhile, the people on the outside were viewed as "outcasts" and "sinners," unworthy of the bountiful favor of God which the elites thought was theirs to do with as they pleased.

With the best of intentions, the temple had been constructed to house the presence of God and stand forever as a symbol of that presence in the midst of God's people. But, by Jesus' day, it had become a symbol of elitism and corruption, a prime target for God's wrath. To his disciples, who demonstrated a foolish admiration for the temple's architecture, Jesus said, "Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down" (Mark 13:2).

Thrown down the temple was, at the hands of the Romans, a mere forty years after Jesus uttered those words. It wasn't the first time. The Babylonians had taken it down once before. But the fall of the second temple was decisive because there was an inextricable link between it and the true "house" which Jesus himself "raised up" through his death and resurrection. In his vision of New Jerusalem, John says, "I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Behold, the dwelling place [literally, "tabernacle"] of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God." (Revelation 21:3) A few verses later, he says, "I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb" (Revelation 21:22).

Through his death and resurrection, Jesus restored the original dynamic of God's relationship with his people. "And the Word became flesh and dwelt [literally, "tabernacled"] among us" (John 1:14a). From the very beginning, God has desired to dwell not "in houses made by hands" (Acts 7:48b), but in the midst of his people, finding in their hearts, cleansed from sin by the blood of the Lamb, his true and eternal home.

(JAG)

Holy is His Name (Magnificat)

Saturday in Advent 3: All come together before God

Opening Sentence

The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. Isaiah 40:5

Commemoration: Dorothy L. Sayers

Almighty God, who gave to your servant Dorothy L Sayers special gifts of grace to understand and teach the truth as it is in Christ Jesus: Grant that by this teaching we may know you, the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Psalter: Psalm 55

Lessons: Zechariah 8:9-17, Revelation 6, Matthew 25:31-46

"The dead small and great," St. John says that he saw standing before God. In that great judgment day, another truth is that the difference of sizes among human lives, of which we make so much, passes away, and all human beings, in simple virtue of their human quality, are called to face the everlasting righteousness. The child and the greybeard, the scholar and the boor, however their lives may have been separated here, they come together there. It is upon the moral ground that the most separated souls must always meet. Upon the child and the philosopher alike rests the common obligation not to lie, but to tell the truth. The scholar and the plowboy both are bound to be pure and to be merciful. Differently as they may have to fulfill their duties, the duties are the same for both. Intellectual sympathies are limited. The more we study, the more we separate ourselves into groups with special interests. But moral sympathies are universal. The more we try to do right, the more we come into communion with all the others who are engaged in the same struggle all through the universe. Therefore it is that before the moral judgment seat of God all souls, the small and the great, are met together.

All may be good -- all may be bad; therefore, before the One whose nature is the decisive touchstone of goodness and badness in every nature which is laid upon it, all souls of all the generations of mankind may be assembled. Think what a truth that is. We try to find some meeting ground for all humanity, and what we find is always proving itself too narrow or too weak. The one only place where all can meet, and every soul claim its relationship with every other soul, is before the throne of God. The Father's presence alone furnishes the meeting place for all the children, regardless of differences of age or wisdom. The grave and the learned of this earth shall come up there before God, and find, standing in God's presence, that all which they have truly learned has not taken them out of the sympathy of the youngest and simplest of their Father's children. On the other hand, the simple child, who has timidly gazed afar off upon the great minds of his race, and who comes to stand with them before God, will not be shut out from them. Even that child has a key which will unlock their doors and allow and entrance into their lives. Because they are all obeying the same God, that child also has some part in the eternal life of Abraham, and Moses, and Paul. Not directly, but through the God before whom both of them stand, the small and great come together. The humility of the highest and the self-respect of the lowest are both perfectly attained. The children, who have not been able to understand or hold communion with each other directly, meet perfectly together in the Father's house, and the dead, small and great, stand in complete sympathy and oneness before God.

And now one question still remains! Is the fulfillment of the vision of St. John for us to wait for until we are dead? Can only the dead stand before God? Think for a moment what we found to be the blessings of that standing before God, and then consider that those privileges, however they may be capable of being given more richly to the human soul in the eternal world, are privileges upon whose enjoyment any soul may enter here. Consider this, and the question at once is answered. Already, now, you and I may live by the standards of the eternal righteousness, and we may claim our fellowship with the least and the greatest of our fellow human beings, and we may so lay hold on God that we shall realize our immortality. The soul that has done all that, is now standing before God. It does not need to push aside the curtain, and to enter into the unknown world which lies behind. While we are living here, walking these common streets, living in closest intercourse with others, we are already in the everlasting presence, and our heaven has begun.

But now these are the very things which Jesus Christ promises to give, and which he has given to multitudes. All who will come to him and serve him are brought thereby to the loftiest standards of righteousness, to the broadest and deepest human fellowship, and to such a true knowledge of God that their own immortality becomes real to them.

Is it not true, then, that Christ does for the soul which follows him, that which the experience of the eternal world shall take up and certify, and complete? Already in him we begin to live the everlasting life. Already its noble independence, its deep discrimination, its generous charity, its large hopefulness, its great abounding and inspiring peace gathers around and fills the soul which lives in obedience to him. Already, as he himself said, "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life."

And yet, while we need not wait till we are dead for the privilege and power of "standing before God," yet still the knowledge of that loftier and more manifest standing before God, which is to come in the unseen land, of which St. John has told us, may make more possible the true experience of the divine presence which we may  have here. Because I am to stand before God in some yet unimagined way, seeing God with some keener sight, hearing God's words with some quicker hearing which shall belong to some new condition of eternity, therefore I will be sure that my true life here consists in such a degree of realization of God's presence, such a standing before God in obedience, and faith, and love, as is possible for one in this lower life.

When the change come to any of us, my friends, how little it will be, if we have really been, through the power of Jesus Christ, standing before God, in our poor, half-blind way upon the earth. If now, in the bright freshness of your youth, you give yourself to Christ, and through him do indeed know God as your dearest friend, years and years hence, when the curtain is drawn back for you, and you are bidden to join the host of the dead who stand before God eternally, how slight the change will be. Only the change from the struggle to the victory, only the opening of the dusk and twilight into the perfect day. "Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master."

Phillips Brooks

People Look East

Archbishop Duncan's Advent Letter

16th December, A.D.2011
O sapientia

TO ALL FAITHFUL ANGLICANS IN NORTH AMERICA:
Beloved in the Lord,

Advent begins to turn toward Christmas. In the early days of the season, Charles Wesley’s hymn “Lo, He comes with Clouds, descending” summarizes the focus on Christ’s coming again at the end of the ages. Now the strains of “O come, o come Emmanuel” direct us toward all the prophecies of the first coming at Bethlehem in Judea.

In Britain, eight different evening antiphons were used (seven on the continent) – a different one each evening – as a “countdown to Christmas.” These eight antiphons are the source of the hymn now known to almost everyone. Come Wisdom (O sapientia)! Come Lord! Come Root of Jesse! Come Key of David! Come Dayspring! Come King of Gentiles! Come Emmanuel! Come Virgin Born!

The ancient Advent antiphons are cries to the Lord that He would come and “ransom” us, that He would fulfill His promises to us, that He would be God with us.

In this Advent of the Year of our Lord 2011, as we shift our call from Revelation’s Maranatha! [Rev.22.20] to Isaiah’s Emmanuel [Isa.7.14] there are many, many situations where we need the wisdom, the key, the dayspring and everything else promised in Scripture and rehearsed in the familiar hymn. There are so many needs that require the Lord’s help and our conversion: hunger, homelessness, sickness, despair, oppression, conflict, addiction, abuse, no one to care…

One need is peculiar to us as Anglicans and as Christians: unity in Christ. These last weeks have been filled with much heart-break for our brothers and sisters of the Anglican Mission in the Americas and, as a consequence, for us in the Anglican Church in North America. At Pentecost of 2004 Bishops Leonard Riches, David Anderson, Chuck Murphy, Keith Ackerman, Don Harvey and I wrote to Archbishop Rowan Williams pledging to make “common cause for the Gospel of Jesus Christ and for a biblical, missionary and united Anglicanism in North America.” The crisis of the moment is also opportunity. We need the wisdom, the key and the dayspring for this as for every situation. We need to seek the Lord’s help and commit our best efforts to this Anglican need as well as to all the other needs of our human family. I, as Archbishop, will do my part. As your gift to Jesus this year, I trust you will do yours.

We received word this week of a decision by the Province of the Episcopal Church of the Sudan that their House of Bishops had taken action to recognize “fully” the Anglican Church in North America as a “true faithful Orthodox Church” and to commit to “work with [us] to expand the Kingdom of God in the world.” I pray we will prove worthy of the trust this Province has expressed. I pray we will do it in the same fidelity to the Word of God and with the same Christ-like charity they have shown. I pray we will do it with the same courage and unity in adversity as the Church of the Sudan has shown through thirty years of civil war, suffering and martyrdom. What trust they place in us!

“O come, o come Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel, that mourns in lowly exile here, until the Son of God appear.” Our God has come and is coming. We have nothing to fear with Him, as long as we are in Him.

Be assured of my prayers for every one of you in these closing Advent days, in the twelve days of Christmas, and in all the days that are ahead.

Faithfully in Christ,

Archbishop and Primate
Anglican Church in North America

Advent sermon: Hope by R.W. Church (1885)

"And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three." -- 1 Corinthians 13:13

"Faith, hope, charity"; these, in St. Paul's analysis, are the characteristic elements of the Christian mind. In the technical language of the Church they are the three theological virtues in contradistinction to the purely moral ones. They have filled a large space in the philosophy and the poetry of ancient Christendom, as an exhaustive coordination of the distinctive qualities of Christian saintship. St. Paul, as we know, in enumerating them, makes one of them the greatest in order and in nature--"the great- [89] est of these is charity." But it is a first and foremost place among equals. All stand together, as nothing else does, in the front rank of the perfections which make Christian goodness. All are equally indispensable in those who would please God and follow Christ.

The question occurs to us sometimes, more or less consciously, why hope should be ranked so high, placed on a level with faith and charity. We can understand why faith should be so singled out; it is the foundation of the whole structure of religion; it is the bond between the creature and his invisible Maker and God; it is the special title of his acceptance; it is the ground of his self-devotion and obedience, of his highest and noblest ventures. Still more can we understand it of charity; for charity brings us near, in the essential qualities of character, to Him Whom we believe in and worship; [90] charity is the faint and distant likeness of Him Who so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son to save it; charity must last and live and increase, under whatever conditions the regenerate nature exists, the same in substance, however differ-ing in degree, in the humblest penitent on earth and in the adoring saint or seraph in the eternal world. But hope is thought of, at first sight, as a self-regarding quality; something which throws forward its desires into the future, and dwells on what it imagines of happiness for itself. And hope, of all things, is delusive and treacherous; it tempts to security and self-deceit; it tempts us to dreams which cannot be realised, which divert us from the necessary and wholesome realities which do concern us: it is the mother of half the mistakes, half the fruitless wanderings, half the unhappiness of the world. How comes it that such a quality is [91] placed on a level with faith and love? What need of encouragement to what men are only too ready to do of themselves?

But it is not really strange that St. Paul should raise hope to a Christian temper of the first order. St. Paul was a student of Scripture and of the history of his people and of religion in the world. And what is on the surface of the Bible is the way in which from first to last it is one unbroken, persistent call to hope--to look from the past and present to the future. Its contents, we know, are manifold and various; the subjects which it treats are widely different, and it is different in different parts of it in its way of treating them; it is the record of enormous changes, of a great progressive advance in God's dispensations and of man's light and character, of the long and wonderful education of the Law and the Prophets; its story of uninterrupted tendency is strangely [92] chequered in fact; bright and dark succeed one another with the most unexpected turns--lofty faith and the meanest disloyalty, great achievements and unexpected failure, lessons of the purest goodness and most heartfelt devotion, with the falls and sins of saints, blessing and chastisement, the patience of God, and the incorrigible provocations of His people. In spite of all that is wonderful and glorious in it, it sounds like the most disastrous and unpromising of stories; and yet that is not its result. For amid the worst and most miserable conditions there is one element which is never allowed to disappear--the strength of a tenacious and unconquerable hope. Hope, never destroyed, however overthrown, never obscured even amid the storm and dust of ruin, is the prominent characteristic of the Old Testament. All leads back to hope--hope of the loftiest and most assured kind, even after the [93] most fatal defeats, of changes which seem beyond remedy. The last word is always hope. If ever it dies, it revives again, larger, more confident than before. It is implied in the very language and appeals of despair. Hope spreads its colours over the sacred Book, whose outlook and interest is always the future, which looks back to the past only as the ground and pledge of the great things to come. So has St. Paul described the purpose and effect of Scripture, for his words are as true of the New Testament as of the Old. It is to impress upon religion the temper, the obligation of hope. He may be said to have characterised Scripture as, above everything, the Book of Hope. "For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning; that we, through patience and comfort of the Scriptures, might have hope." Over all other voices in the Old Testament, voices of command, entreaty, [94] warning, rebuke, threatening, of triumph and gladness, of sorrow and desolation, rises dominant the voice of consolation, the instant call to hope even against hope, which elevates and strengthens as well as reassures: "Comfort ye, comfort ye My people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins."

Hope, I say--the temper and virtue answering to and embracing great and worthy things hoped for--elevates and strengthens and inspires. This is why it is one of the great elements of the religious temper; this is why it ranks with faith and charity. It is one of the great and necessary springs of full religious action. There may be a faith almost without hope; a faith which believes on, though it can [95] see nothing; a faith which refuses to be comforted, which will not let the distant picture of better things rise before it, but yet trusts, even in the darkness, to God's truth and goodness. It is the deep and awful faith of him who said, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him"--of the cry, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" It is the touching and childlike confidence of the prophet--"Although the fig-tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation." But the human spirit can hardly stand long the strain of a hopeless faith; one or other of the elements will assert its supremacy. And hope is the energy and effort of faith; the strong self-awakening from the spells of [96] discouragement and listlessness and despair. What gives its moral value to hope, what makes it a virtue and a duty, is that in its higher forms it is a real act and striving of the will and the moral nature; and if any one thinks that this is an easy process he has yet much to learn of the secrets of his own heart. It is an act, often a difficult act, of choice and will, like the highest forms of courage. It is a refusal to be borne down and cowed and depressed by evil; a refusal, because it is not right, to indulge in the melancholy pleasure, no unreal one, of looking on the dark side of things. It is so that hope plays so great a part in the spiritual life; that it fights with such power on the side of God. For it not only receives, not only welcomes, not only trusts in God's promises, but it throws into them light and reality; they become to it not words but substantial things. It is on our wild and [97] wayward imagination that the forces play both of fear and hope; it is there that we conjure up dangers, that we allow ourselves to faint and be dismayed at the prospect and omens of coming trouble; it is there that we look forward and see all that we have loved and cared for come to nought. And on the other hand, hope, religious hope, is a deliberate counter-appeal to that mighty power which disposes with such mysterious influence of so much of human life. It is an endeavour to subject imagination to truth and reason and God. It is an exercise, it may well be, of self-mastery, to enlist imagination on the side of God, as the ally and enlightener and support of faith; to make it use its charms against dark dreams and terrors. And further, hope is a great instrument of spiritual and moral discipline. "We are saved by hope," says St. Paul. Long waiting, we know now, is God's ap- [98] pointed order for the generations of men. There was a time when men thought that all would soon be over; they mistook God's way. With all the ups and downs of earthly history the world holds on its course, and one after another men are born, and play their part, and die. All kinds of changes, all kinds of fortunes, befall His Church, befall us all who are going through our trial time. And we are often tempted to be tired and depressed, out of heart, and out of patience. Ah! my brethren, shall we answer to God's purpose, Who has bidden us hope, Who has given us ground for hope, so amazing, so blessed? Shall we let it make us what it was meant to make us--cheerful, calm, even-minded, large-hearted, generous? Shall we let its light and its brightness wean us from the dulness and heaviness of an unhopeful temper, rouse us to activity and the zest and gladness of charity, when we [99] are fretted by little troubles, or oppressed by great ones? This is the office of hope; this is what it contributes to Christian excellence. It is not little. If only we hoped in earnest to be what St. Paul and St. John hoped to be; hoped in earnest, as they did, for the future of righteousness and glory which they held up to their disciples and to the generations of the Church, we should know more than we do, not only of their joy, but of their strength and their goodness.

This temper of hopefulness is not only concerned with the great things of hereafter. It has to do with our feelings towards things here. There must often be much in the course of things which interest us now, to distress and alarm us: evils which seem without remedy, defeats which seem final, perplexities through which we cannot see our way, dark and gloomy clouds rising in menace over our familiar world. To hope [100] seems to us then like deluding ourselves; we call it optimism, an instinctive dislike to pain, a determination not to see the cruel truth. And yet how often has it appeared in the upshot of things that if in the darkest times any had been bold enough to hope he would have been amply justified? What must have been the feelings of Christians in the fourth and fifth centuries, when, just as Christianity seemed to have won its way into the Roman Empire, they saw the fierce northern barbarians break into it, and the heathen triumph over religion and civil order? Which would then have seemed the judgment of sober good sense--the despondency which only saw the frightful mischief, or the bold hope which saw in the barbarians the seed of a great Christendom? Yet, who would have been right and who wrong? Or again, in the tenth century, when open wickedness and ignorance filled the high places of the [101] Church, when all seemed so bad and so hopeless that men disposed of their goods as if the end of the world must come with the end of the century, if any one had looked forward, in spite of all, to Christians again recognising their high calling, again preaching peace and charity, and leaving all to follow Christ--to the return of a great intellectual tide of art and of thought, where now all was brutality and darkness--would he not have seemed a dreamer? Yet, who would have been wrong and who right--the dreamer or the despairing? And so of other times of confusion and corruption in the Church, when the powers of evil seemed impregnable, and the attempts of those who dared to cope with them seemed only to issue in disappointment, or new forms of mischief; amid the polished or superstitious godlessness of the fifteenth century, in the angry and heady disputations of the sixteenth, [102] in the tumults and revolutions, the atrocious wars of religion in France and Germany, in the fierce cruelty, the depravity, the plundering greed of the upper classes, the depression and helplessness of the poor, left without guide or friend, the insolent claims, the savage intolerance of rival systems and rival teachers, were there not ample arguments for despair? and would he not have been a bold man who could put his trust in the powers of self-correction and recovery, in the living gifts of the Holy Ghost, and hope that things would not always be as bad as this, that the days of peace and mercy would yet come? And who would, after all abatements, have been right? "It is come," wrote the soberest and also the loftiest of Christian thinkers in the last century, "I know not how, to be taken for granted by many persons, that Christianity is not so much as a subject of inquiry; but that it is now at length [103] discovered to be fictitious." The ominous symptom has not certainly grown less ominous; but could even the calm and large mind of Bishop Butler have embraced the thought that with this, not diminished, perhaps aggravated, there might also come a steady growth of energy and fervour and deepening practical purposes in the Church and religious men, such as certainly he had not seen, nor could look for?

We are but short-sighted creatures. We see and feel so clearly what is immediate and pressing that we leave out of account all the subtle and complex forces, mighty and ever active, though we do not discern them, that are, perhaps, in the long run more eventful and decisive than anything we can now see. It is almost proverbial how often the prophecies of the wisest and most sagacious--prophecies of evil and of good, calm and deliberate forecasts which seem to rest on [104] unanswerable reasons--are almost ludicrously falsified in the event. It is unsafe to prophesy; it is more than wise, it is our duty, to hope. God's mercy has never deserted us. It has allowed the darkest hours to pass over us, the severest trials, the keenest and bitterest sorrows. His returning mercy has come back, perhaps in a very different form from what we expected; it has not restored what was lost; it has not revived what had perished; but it has given us something to take the place of what is gone. He has varied the conditions of our service. But He has come back to us in mercy; come back to us in His bounty and quickening grace; come back to us in His manifold, His inexhaustible wisdom, bringing new good strangely out of surmised evil, compensating, refashioning, developing, adapting. Surely this is the wonderful experience of our most disappointing and disobedient and yet en- [105] during Christendom. We need not blind ourselves to facts; we have our part to do, and must deal as we may and as we ought with what is dangerous and hurtful. But the God of Hope calls to us out of the darkness; and we are unfaithful to Him if in our distress and fear we shut ours ears to His voice, and dwell despondingly on a future which is in His hands.

But to Christians all that here invites and demands hope is but little to that which is to be when all here shall have been passed and over. It is simply the most literal fact that God has set before us, in another state of being, the most wonderful future, which is within the certain reach of every single one of us: as much, as certainly within our reach, as anything that we know of, which we could obtain to-morrow. This is the plain, clear, certain promise, without which Christianity is a dream and delusion. The [106] life and destiny of each individual man runs up to this; this is what he was made for; for this he has been taught, and has received God's grace, and has been tried, and has played his part in the years of time. It is the barest of commonplaces; and yet, I think, to any one who has tried to open his mind to its reality and certainty, it must have come with a strange and overpowering force--new on every fresh occasion, like nothing else in the world. For it is one thing to look forward to some great general event, the triumph of the saints of God, the final glory of the great company of the redeemed; one thing to look at all this from the outside, as a spectator by the power of imagination and thought: and quite another, when it comes on your mind that you yourself in the far-off ages, you yourself, the very person now on earth, are intended to have your place--your certain and definite place--in [107] all that triumph, in all that blessedness, in all that glory; and yet surely, to any one that will, this is the prospect; this, and nothing less. You may put Christianity aside; you may say that such hopes cannot be for man; but, if you are a Christian, this in its utmost fulness and reality is what you are to hope for. Think of anything you most long for here; you see perhaps the day--weeks or months or years hence--when you shall have the great desire on which you live. So in all sober assurance and serious meaning the New Testament bids us look forward to that future which one day we are to reach. What will be those new conditions of our being, which are one day to be as familiar to man's perfected nature as the conditions of sin and suffering are familiar to him now, we cannot tell. "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, the things which God [108] hath prepared for them that love Him." How could it be otherwise? How can we imagine that the experience of our short years in this life, strange and wonderful as it is, could be the measure of a state of being in which we are to be brought near to Jesus Christ, and are to share the life of immortality? It is shown in Scripture, in figure and emblem--figure and emblem which blind us with their glory, even while they transport us with rapture; yet only in figure and emblem could such things be presented to the mind of man. But some things are certain, which we can understand even now. Then, at last, we may dare to look forward to being sinless. Think of what you know of your own conscience, your own temptations, your own falls, your own struggles for forgiveness and restoration; and then think what it will be, to have left all that behind. Then, whatever be the [109] functions and employment of that perfect state, whatever work God may have for us to do, we shall have the will and the power to do it as the angels do. The divided service, the broken purpose, the double mind, the treacheries of the will, the blindness of self-deceit, the laggard indolence, all that now mars and cripples our sincerest obedience, will then have been purged away, and in all the fulness of truth we shall know how to serve Him with a whole heart. Again, the greatest and purest and most enduring happiness we can know here is in the exercise of the affections; there, in infinite measure, will be all that calls forth human affections, and there human affections will be raised to new power and strength--transfigured, purified, glorified. And then, in ways we cannot dream of now, we shall be brought near to Him from Whom we have our being, God our Father, the Ever-Blessed [110] and the All-Holy, and Jesus Christ Who loved and saved us, and that Holy Spirit which has been with us all the days of our wandering here. And those strange words shall be fulfilled which promise that "We shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is."

This, as no one denies, is what Scripture invites us to believe and to hope. These are no idle exaggerations of rhetoric or fancy; they are the bare words of truth and soberness. It is what we are living for, unless we are living in vain. And with such things before us, with such things showed to us, can we wonder that the Apostle places hope, the temper that embraces this and rejoices in this, on a level with faith and charity? Have such things been told us for nothing? Are they things to be without a meaning to us? Have we, as we have, the power, in some degree at least, of realising them, of projecting our very self, our character, our [111] feelings, our conscious being into this amazing future, reserved and waiting for us; of imagining how we shall feel there; and can we have been meant to live as if those things were not? Is it not simply a duty to hope; a sin against God's high goodness, a crime against the order of His teaching, not to hope? Is it not a duty, in solemn and quiet self-recollection, to put before our thoughts that unbroken and continuous line, which joins this very present moment with that hour which certainly is to arrive, when we must be changed, when we may be changed into the spotless blessedness of the saints of God? You--you yourself--with your trouble, your temptations, your sin, small or great, your conscious weakness, your insensibility and ignorance; yet you yourself are one of those of whom, if you will, all this wondrous future will, must, come true. There is no blessedness of the soul of man, no rest from [112] weariness, no refreshment after toil, no opening of the eyes to beauty never seen by mortal eye, no delight in goodness, no rejoicing in perfect love, no ineffable sense of the sweetness and tenderness of God's mercy--none of these that may not be hoped for; hoped for with all the warrant of the Almighty's promise, by each soul here present, with its identity unbroken, with that individual character which makes it what it is. And is that great hope to be practically all a blank to us?

It is not to be told how much we lose of strength, of gladness and enlargement of heart, of power to do God's service cheerfully and happily, by not realising and dwelling on the great hopes "set before us." We let ourselves be blinded, fretted, disheartened by the present, because we will not look up and see what is as certain as the present, in the not very distant future. Many of us, to-day, [113] remember with more or less regret that this is the last Sunday of the year; that another year has gone out of our tale of days. Its days are gone and will never come back; nor that which they brought, and took away with them; the pleasant times which those days gave us, the glad meetings, the sunny holidays, are gone; gone, with the happiness which its days wrecked, with the health that they have broken, with the old friends, the lives, some of them noble and precious ones, which they have taken with them into the past. Here, as at a deathbed, we feel the close of all earthly things, the inevitableness and the drawing near of death. With us the natural thing is to look back to the past; the word that naturally rises to our lips is, "Another year gone." It is natural with us: with St. Paul it is just as natural to reflect, "Now is our salvation nearer than when we first believed. The night is far [114] spent, the day is at hand." It is the last Sunday, and that must give us much to think of. But it is not only, it is not chiefly that. About us are the songs, and the joy, and the innocent gladness of Christmas. About us, as we are reminded to-day, are the "bright beams of light which God casts upon His Church" [1]--bright indeed to us now, but only the faint quivering of the dawn of that Eternal Day. We, at least, if we are not Christians in vain, can join the stern and awful thoughts that accompany the lapse of time--awful enough, indeed, to make the boldest anxious--with the deep and chastened sense of realities beyond it, certain, final, ineffable, over which time has no power, which are warranted to men. We can pass on to the great hope which from end to end fills the Bible--the hope which ennobles and gladdens our mortal life; such [115] a hope as carried St. Paul in strength and joy through the long "daily dying" of his Apostleship, and burst forth in such impassioned yet most reasonable conviction--"For I count," he says, "that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us.... For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Friday in Advent 3: Worthy is the Lamb!

Opening Sentence

In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Isaiah 40:3

Collect of the Day

Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us; and, because we are sorely hindered by our sins, let your bountiful grace and mercy speedily help and deliver us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory, now and for ever. Amen.

Psalter: Psalm 40, 54

Lessons: Zechariah 7:8-8:8, Revelation 5:6-14, Matthew 25:14-30

For all of its bizarre imagery, Revelation is, from start to finish, a book of worship; the liturgy of the New Heaven and the New Earth. It cannot be understood outside that context. It is not a book of doom and gloom or death and destruction, at least not for those who have been washed in the blood of the Lamb. It is a vision of the church doing what God created it to do for all eternity: worship and praise his holy Name!

"Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!" shouts the great throng around the throne of God. This is sevenfold praise: complete, full, and perfect adoration of Christ the Lamb, slain from the foundation of the world. It is the eternal proclamation that Christ -- the Lamb that was slain -- has won the victory and is worthy of all the praise and adoration that is due him. All these things belong to him but, even so, he gave up himself willingly and was slain for the redemption of the world. That is all the more reason for true worshipers on earth to join with every voice in heaven to proclaim, "Worthy is the Lamb!"

Every created thing in heaven and on earth -- the four living creatures surrounding the throne representing the whole created order, and the 24 elders representing the whole of God's covenant people -- are united together in a continuous act of adoration and praise. Worship is a continuous, active, and vocal response to the mighty and gracious acts of God in Jesus Christ; the highest service to be rendered to him who is eternally Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The throne of God is not just a lofty perch upon which God gazes down on us from heaven. Jesus Christ, the perfect Lamb of God, has died and risen again. Therefore, the door into heaven is standing open (Revelation 4:1). The worshiping community is in the presence of Christ, and Christ is present in its midst, even when the visible surroundings bear no resemblance to those of the great heavenly throng.

True and genuine worship is an attitude of the heart; an inner posture of yieldedness to the God who is, who was, and who is to come. It is the attitude expressed by the elders who "fell down and worshipped." Falling down is the posture of yieldedness, willingly submitting to the one true, eternal, and triune God whose purpose is accomplished through the death of the Lamb. Worshiping before the throne of God, believers participate in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. They become partakers in the suffering and the tribulation that is bound to take place when they take a stand for Christ in the midst of a rebellious world. To proclaim with a loud voice, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain!" is to ascribe ultimate majesty and worth to the God whose great purpose is accomplished through being slain.

Through all the suffering, the true worshipers own the ultimate victory. Having died with Christ, they have also been raised with him to life eternal. They have already experienced the worst the world can inflict upon them. While the present, visible surroundings may appear to be no different than before -- still there are the scoffers, the persecutors, those who ridicule the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ -- true worshipers know that all around them, though not visible to the human eye, is the great multitude around the throne. True worshipers walk every day in the presence of God. They are a part of the great throng of every creature in heaven and on earth, continually proclaiming, "To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever!"

(JAG)

Worthy is the Lamb/Hallelujah (from The New Young Messiah)