Advent Sunday 2022 St Andrew’s Milngavie
Dear All
Today we gathered to Celebrate Advent Sunday, marking the beginning of our preparation for Christmas and the beginning of the church’s year.
We welcomed James Skuse who played for us in Penny’s absence.
The Christmas Tree Festival will run from 3rd – 9th December at St Paul’s – daily 10am – 4pm. Sunday 1pm -4pm. Music and refreshments. We are donating a tree which we will decorate on Friday 2nd.
Notices for this week:
Tuesday 10am Prayer Group in the Garden Room.
Thursday 10am Said Eucharist followed by coffee in Friendship House
Readings for next Sunday – Isaiah 11:1-10 Romans 15:4-13 Matthew 3:1-12
Today’s readings – Isaiah 2:1-5 Romans 13:11-end Matthew 24:36-44
This is the first Sunday in Advent. All over the country decorations are going up and plans and preparations are being made.
In the Church we too associate advent with preparation – a spiritual preparation of reflection, penitence and even judgement.
But it is also a time of expectation, it is the season when we look forward to the birth of Jesus.
But, as our Advent hymns remind us it is not just the birth of Jesus we look forward to, we also look forward to Christ’s coming again as we sing `O come, O come, Emmanuel’ and `Lo! he comes with clouds descending’.
Advent is a season which encompasses all the three tenses: past, present and future. At Advent we often talk of `looking forward to the birth of Jesus’, but we know that this is only a manner of speaking. The birth of Jesus took place some two thousand years ago, and what we now look forward to is Christmas, our annual celebration of that event. When, however, we look forward to Jesus coming again, we looking to the future – unsure of what it is we are really looking for.
The Collect for Advent, which we have just heard brings out these three tenses quite clearly, but especially concentrates on the present.`Give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, NOW . . in the time of this mortal life’
Suddenly it is not the historical past or the unknown future that comes to mind, but the immediate present— now in Milngavie on this Sunday morning. It is NOW that we are to cast away the works of darkness.
So, at Advent we look back to the birth of Christ and his ministry on earth, we look forward to our yearly celebration of his birth at Christmas, and we look still further forward to his coming again when he will reveal fully his glory to us and when we shall meet him face to face.
But when we think of the now, it’s today we invite Christ into our hearts, into the scenes of our lives, into our personal angst and anxieties, into our trials and tribulations and into the troubles of the wider world.
One of the best things about Christmas and Advent I think is the hymns. The writer of `O little town of Bethlehem’ tells the Christmas story, but it also applies to our present lives in a very moving way with the familiar words
`How silently, how silently
The wondrous gift is given!
So , God imparts to human hearts
The blessings of his heaven.
No ear may hear his coming
But in this world of sin
Where meek souls will receive him still
The dear Christ enters in.’
`No ear may hear his coming’. Inviting Christ into our lives need not be a dramatic incident like St Paul’s encounter with the Risen Christ on the road to Damascus, often it is in the routine, the mundane and even the suffering that we meet Christ and often we may not even recognise him. In the parable of the sheep and the goats, the righteous, who are to inherit eternal life are unaware that Christ has visited them and that they have received him.
`Lord when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
The king replied “I’ll tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me” Matthew 25:44-45
We meet Christ in others and often when we are least expecting it.
So, this Advent may we be alert to Christ’s presence in our lives and allow his transforming love to dwell in our hearts and souls bringing hope and salvation to us, our communities and our world. It was on this subject that Paul urgently appealed to the Romans as we heard this morning in the epistle. These words can still speak to us today.
“And do this, understanding the present time: The hour has already come for you to wake up from your sleep, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us lay aside the works s of darkness and put on the armour of light.” Romans 13:11-12
As Advent begins, our prayer is that this becomes a time for us to walk with God and for God to walk with us.
Together may we wait, watch, stay awake because the Lord is coming. Amen