An Advent prayer for every day
Canon Professor Michael Hull writes:
Advent is the liturgical season to mark not only the start of the liturgical year, as we anticipate the humble Jesus in his Incarnation at Christmas, but also our life-long anticipation for an encounter with him as the Risen Jesus at his Second coming at the end of time. Bearing in mind these two expectancies simultaneously is no small feat.
Our Holy Eucharists in the Scottish Episcopal Church on the first Sunday of Advent will include this Collect: Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness and 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, that on 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.
The Collect was composed by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer for the first Book of Common Prayer of 1549 and has been with us since at the start of Advent. The Collect’s use, taken to be of great spiritual value in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, was extended to everyday use in Advent in the Book of Common Prayer of 1662. The Scottish Prayer Book of 1929 reads: ‘This Collect is to be repeated after the other Collects every day in Advent, until Christmas Eve’.
Cramer captures the essence of Advent’s dual focus wherein we prepare for the coming of Jesus is two related yet distinct senses. First, we prepare for his coming ‘in great humility’ and second, for his coming ‘in glorious majesty’, that is, in a proximate sense we await the Child and in the ultimate sense we await the Judge.
The people of God make a good showing in anticipating the baby Jesus who comes down to us from heaven. All around us, we see preparation in our churches with Advent wreaths, crèches etc. We are all in when it comes to preparing for Christmas in terms of welcoming Jesus who has humbled himself to be born among us as a human in his first coming. And that is very good, indeed.
But what about preparing for Jesus in his second coming? What about his return from heaven at the end of time? St Paul reminds us clearly, ‘we will all stand before God’s judgment seat’ (Rom. 14.10), and ‘Jesus will judge both the living and the dead at his [second] appearing’ (2 Tim. 4.1). Furthermore, Jesus himself assures us that God ‘has entrusted all judgement to the Son’ and ‘has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man’ (Jn 5.22, 27).
Cranmer incorporates the latter part of Rom. 13.11–12—‘And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light’—into the Collect expecting, it seems, that the urgency of the second coming be appreciated. If we are praying the Collect well, we have our eyes fixed on only on the Crib but on the Clouds: ‘Look, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him’ (Rev. 1.7; cf. Matt. 24.30; Acts 1.9–11).
Whilst Christmas, and to some extent Advent, may be said to be for children and for the childlike as we open our arms to embrace the holy Child, an extension of that reasoning is seeing at the same time that Advent and Christmas are for adults, for mature Christians to take stock of themselves in terms of their spiritual preparation to accept the Judge with our arms open in cruciform. It is high time for us to wake out of sleep because our salvation is near. Over emphasis on the security of the Child can lull us into a specious slumber wherein we forget the Judge is coming. We misinterpret Advent if we fail to imitate rather than only to receive Jesus’ humility in becoming human because when he comes again in glorious majesty, he will not favour the haughty and proud but those who have humbled themselves according to his example at his first coming.
We would do well to make Cranmer’s Collect not only our prayer on the first Sunday of Advent, even an everyday prayer for Advent, but also a prayer for every day in this mortal life of ours to beseech the grace that vanquishes darkness and brings light, yea, the light of Christ!
The Reverend Canon Professor Michael Hull has been an Assistant Priest at St Vincent’s since 2015. He is also the Principal of the Scottish Episcopal Institute.
