Sunday Reflection: 

The first Advent Sunday is like New Year’s Day in the life of the church. This day and week finds the church inviting us to take stock of our lives as we live them at one point in time in view of the comings of Jesus Christ over time. The readings focused on wakefulness before judgement and signs of the end time. Our attention is turned, first, to Jesus’ second coming in glory and then, just before Christmas, to the events leading to his birth as Lord incarnate. But in the supporting Old and New Testament readings this week there is conjoining contemplation on the comings of Jesus Christ into our lives individually and corporately in the interim period of the Spirit. By this we are reminded the comings of Jesus are not events to look forward to in the future and to be remembered in the past but to be expected in the present. Advent now.

The Collect

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 forever. Amen.