ADVENT I RECOLLECTIONS NOV 28, 2004
The Advent Season marks the beginning of a new year in the Christian Church calendar. The Christian Year has had several new “beginnings” during its development in the Western Church. The first “New Year”, still maintained in the Eastern Churches, was Easter Day. At Rome, the new year began with what is now known as the month of March, which was combined with the Church’s observance of the preparatory time before the Easter Feast. When Christmas Day, the Birthday of Christ, was instituted in Rome in the 4th century, this became the beginning of the new Church Year. The oldest Roman Church books begin with the Propers for the Vigil hristmas. Advent was inaugurated in the Gallican churches of France and Spain sometime in the 4th century, even before the celebration of Christmas Day was observed in these regions. It was a penitential season in preparation for the baptisms administered at Epiphany, and comparable to the strict Lenten fasting and discipline before Easter.
In the sixth century it was commonly called “St. Martin’s Lent”, being counted from the Feast of St. Martin,(the patron saint of Gaul), on November 11th. However, many of the Gallican churches had by this time adopted the Christmas Festival and the Advent fast was usually counted as a forty-day period,(Sunday’s excepted)beginning on the day after St. Martin’s Day and lasting until Christmas Day.But in some places, the 40 day fast was reckoned by distributing the fast days among the eight weeks between St. Martin’s Day and Epiphany.
The Roman Church adopted Advent in the 6th century as a preparation for Christmas, not as a penitential season, but as a liturgical discipline before Christmas. The Advent Season was there restricted to one month before Christmas.The Gelasian Sacramentary provides for five Sundays in Advent, the Gregorian for four, but in the Roman Missal the last Sunday after Pentecost, (called the “Sunday next Before Advent in the Sarum Missal and in the Prayer Book), is actually a survival of the old flexibility of the Advent Season. It was not until the 8th century that the Advent Season was considered the beginning of the Christian Year. Later the Advent Season adopted a secondary theme that of preparation of the Second Coming of our Lord at the end of time.This fit in with the meaning of the word, “Advent”, or “coming”. So we have a double emphasis on both the first and the second Advents” of Jesus Christ. *Borrowed from “The Oxford American Prayer Book Commentary”, by Massey H. Shepherd Jr., 1950. The Collect for Advent I, (1928 BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER,pg.90)is repeated at each Holy Communion service until Christmas Day. It was composed by Thomas Cranmer for the 1549 PB, and was taken from the 12th verse of the Epistle for today. A crucial word, “now” ties together the past, present and future. Past: “Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, And was Incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, And was made man”…We look forward to the day when “He shall come again in glory, to judge both the quick and the dead”...But Christianity is not a religion which simply glorifies the past or which only looks forward to a glorious future. Christianity is NOW; around us, within us, and ever present for us. What happened in the past as God revealed His Presence to men, prepares us for NOW. That which we do NOW must prepare us and others for the glorious Second Coming of Christ. The first three lines of our Collect tells us the prayer we must say and follow to accomplish this.
In today’s Epistle, (Romans 13: 8-14), St. Paul instructs the Christians in Rome, (and all of us now), how to prepare for the Second Coming of Christ. We are to wear our faith as though it were clothing, so as to be visible to all. This life we now live is the night; eternity is the morning .The night is far spent. We must cast off the works and ways of this life’s darkness, as our Collect also directs us, and we must put on the Light of God which will shield us by His Grace.
The Holy Gospel, (St. Matthew 21: 1-13, page 91 BCP), is, surprisingly, the story of Palm Sunday and the triumphant entry into Jerusalem. Why do we hear this passage of Holy Scripture now, “out of season?” This event illustrates that Christ came as a king, fulfilling the Messianic hopes of His people. It showed His Messianic authority as He expelled the commercial influence from the Temple. He brought a terrible judgment upon those who were putting spiritual things to selfish gain. He came as both Redeemer and Judge and so He shall again. The first Christians were no doubt constant in their use of the prayer that Jesus taught them, with the petition “Thy kingdom come”. But a cry that came from their hearts and lips as they prayed together, “Maranatha”, which in their native Aramaic tongue, that which was spoken by Jesus, meant: “Our Lord, come!”. Our Advent up the strain, “COME OUR LONG EXPECTED JESUS”, (Hymn 1, THE HYMNAL, 1940) and ‘O COME, O COME, EMMANUEL”, (Hymn 2, ibid). Our liturgy and hymns for this season prepare the way for the Blessed Nativity and the Second Coming, as the messages of the Prophets prepared the way for the Coming of the Messiah. MARANATHA!