Advent Sunday 2018 Athens

Fr James Harris

 

Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness…

We don’t have to look far to see very dark forces at work in these days. Some recent headlines illustrate the point:

• More people have died at sea attempting to reach Spain ifrom north Africa n the last three months than during the whole of 2017
• 10 provinces of Ukraine are now under martial law
• Famine in Yemen
• Murder in synagogues; murder in embassies

I don’t need to go on – but I could.

And Syria, Afghanistan, Sudan – they rarely even make it into the news bulletins these days…

 

This feeling of encroaching darkness is sadly not unique to our current times, though. I am reminded as we sit here in Athens today, that 75 years ago, this city, indeed the entire nation, was under foreign occupation and its people starving.

And at the level of our own lives, we all deal at different times with grief, illness, broken relationships, financial pressures, worries for children, worries for parents.

The darkness of ‘this mortal life’ may not be a new thing – but for those of us living through it, it is real and current and unsettling nevertheless.

Here in a Christian house of prayer, listening to ancient Scripture and singing our Advent hymns, what are we to make of it? How are we to respond?

Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness and to put on the armour of light now in the time of this mortal life, in which your son Jesus Christ came to us in great humility…

The message of Advent, of course, is that darkness does not have the final word, however much it may appear otherwise. The current state of affairs, the state of affairs with which we have become familiar throughout history, is not, ultimately, how the story will end.

The message of Advent is (in part) that, with the birth of a boy in Bethlehem 2000 years ago, an unprecedented type of light was lit, a dawn began to break which the darkness cannot even comprehend, let alone overcome.

That light, the light God sends into the world, is a powerful one.

The light God sends is the light that brought order and form and shape to the turbulent chaos of the swirling darkness at Creation; it is the light that gave hope and direction to the Psalmist in the humiliation of national exile and the overbearing of a fearsome enemy; it is the light that delivers justice, righteousness and reflects the sovereignty of God over the world; it is the light that marks out God’s people, that protects and liberates them, that teaches and directs them.

And, of course, in its ultimate expression, in the person of Jesus Christ, the Light of the World, it is the light that illuminates all truth and exposes all deeds to their fullest scrutiny.

The message of Advent is a call to renew our trust in that light. The light that came into the world at Christmas in the form of a human baby, but more than that, the light that has promised also to return to the world to finish what has already been set in motion and to usher in an eternal dawn which will dispel the darkness forever.

People of God, awake! The day is coming soon when you shall see God face to face.

The message of Advent is a powerful one, and I believe with all my heart that it’s true, that the whole created order will obtain the end that has been promised for it.

But I cannot be the only one – in fact, I know I’m not the only one – who, at the same time as believing, also wants to cry out ‘But how long, Lord?’…

Together with the Prophets and Psalmists of old; together with people of compassion everywhere, I find myself wanting to cry out:

‘This really hurts, Lord; your people are suffering; your world is imploding. Where are you, Lord? How long, Lord?’ We believe your promise – ‘Maranatha’; we pray faithfully day by day ‘Amen. Come Lord Jesus. Your will be done. Your kingdom come’. But – how long, Lord?’

Maybe those words resound in your heart too if you’re honest…For the record, I don’t think it’s an entirely unreasonable prayer.

As I have dwelled with these questions and cries of the heart, the voice I hear in response, perhaps surprisingly, perhaps predictably depending on what you think God is like… does not offer a quick, neat solution.

In all honesty, the voice I hear calls me not to escape from, but to engage with the darkness, to meet it head-on, head-up, to embrace in the face of it a level of faith and courage and perseverance which I am not at all sure I can muster – and which, indeed, in my own strength I know I can’t – but which, by the grace of God, by donning the armour of light, through open-ness to prayer and commitment to worship and Christian fellowship and the seeking of sound teaching, I may attempt to attain.

Stand up and raise your heads…Be on guard…Be alert.

[We pray that the Lord may make you] increase and abound in love for one another and for all… and strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ with his Saints.

Jesus was preparing his disciples for his departure from them, for his death and resurrection, yes, but also his ascension to the throne of the Ancient of Days, a fulfilment of the prophecy of Daniel; he was preparing them for the cataclysmic events of the first century AD in Jerusalem that they would have to face without his physical presence and which would include the destruction of the Temple and the scattering of Christian apostles from there to all corners of the world.

We, on the other hand, as Easter people, as Ascension people, as subjects of Christ the King who is already enthroned in glory; we read these apocalyptic warnings from another perspective. We celebrate his vindication as given and we anticipate, expect, yearn for his return, his royal presence, his ‘parousia’, his coming among us again face to face, this time as Judge and Lord of a renewed and reunited Heaven and Earth where the works of darkness have been cast off once and for all.

For how long must we anticipate, expect, yearn? We simply don’t know. As one writer puts it, the meaning is in the waiting – but as we wait, we take every opportunity to be alert, build and share faith, love others, grow in holiness, meet the darkness of this mortal world with the refulgent light of the eternal Kingdom which is the birthright of all the children of God, so that:

on the last day when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who is alive and reigns with you, Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen