Our Blessed Hope
THE 2ND SUNDAY IN ADVENT
I want to turn your attention to the first Collect in Advent found on page 90, which we prayed last Sunday. Now the term 'Collect' may be new or even unknown to some of us. The Sundays of the liturgical year are organized around what we call the Propers: a prayer, New Testament, and Gospel reading appropriate (or proper) for a certain Sunday. This system of organizing prayers and readings for each Sunday originated as early as the fifth century. The origin of the name "Collect" is uncertain, but the prayer, or collect, has always been associated with assembling God's people: when we are collected together to pray. Another idea is the Collect collects together the major themes and topics of the Epistle and Gospel for the day.
From the Collect for Advent one, we find the grand theme of our Lord having not one but two Advents: the first by his incarnation and birth at Christmas, the second Advent still in the future at "the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious Majesty, to judge both the quick and the dead." The Gospel reading points to the humility of his first Advent as he meekly enters the Holy City on a donkey. Whereas the epistle looks forward to our resurrection when Jesus comes again. I hope you see how the Collect synthesizes and helps us better interpret and understand the readings.
Let's turn to the Collect given for today, the Second Sunday in Advent, Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant that we may in such wise hear, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience, and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace, and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.
It's hard to miss the thematic prominence of God's Word. The Holy Scriptures are mentioned or referenced three times in this prayer composed by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer. By this prayer, we, the church, reaffirm the Divine inspiration and authorship of the Bible, for God "has caused all holy scriptures to be written." God is the fount and the progenitor of divine revelation, which he has disclosed through human agency for the salvation of sinners. The scriptures are supernatural; they are divine. This is the true nature of the Bible.
Next, we learn why God has brought forth and given the Holy Scriptures to the church: it is for "our learning." This is the same point St. Paul makes in today's epistle when writing to the Roman churches that "whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning" or our instruction. The expression 'whatsoever' or 'whatever' is written is shorthand for everything written under divine inspiration, specifically in Paul's thinking, found in the Old Testament.
Yes, the Old Testament comes from the distant past but most importantly, it comes from eternity, as the living Word spoken by the living God himself to teach and instruct his people in the truth and the promises of God. His heavenly revelation is unhindered by the boundaries of space and time and spans from generation to generation to teach his people. Therefore, we "hear, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest" the blessed Holy Scriptures to learn and grow. This is the right and proper use of the Bible.
We are to feast upon the written Word of God. But this isn't merely some spiritual exercise or simply our Christian duty and service to God. Surely a commitment to God's Word exists in the spiritual life of every serious Christian. But the Divine Scripture provides far more to us than whatever service we afford them, for the sure Word of God brings comfort and the blessed hope of everlasting life.
Hear the Collect again, as we prayed "that by patience, and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace, and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life." The Holy Word of God, the scriptures, comfort the afflicted and offer the blessed hope of everlasting life. The wonderful theme of hope emerges from today's Collect from this Second Sunday in Advent: the blessed hope of everlasting life.
In today's epistle, St. Paul writes, "whatsoever things were written aforetime, were written for our learning; that we, through patience, and comfort of the Scriptures, might have hope." In this world, we need patience and comfort in life's trials and tribulations. Therefore, the apostle exhorts his hearers to immerse themselves in the Word of God, for the Word of God cultivates patience, and this same Word brings comfort when we find ourselves adrift in a sea of troubles.
Patience endures because it believes whatever it is enduring to be temporary, that it will finally subside, and things will get better. But without hope, patience is pointless, and comfort is nothing but an illusion. Why bother enduring, in the words of Hamlet, "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" if there's no hope of any future and final relief from our trials? And if enduring trials is without hope, then it is also without comfort because the hope of a better future brings present comfort. So any future horizon devoid of hope will not produce comfort in the present. But what is the ground or basis of any future hope? Well, the answer for a Christian is the past.
St. Paul knows this. He knows that patience and comfort are produced by, and arise from, the promises already revealed and codified in Holy Scripture, from those things which were aforetime. So he grounds his hearers in the Divine promises revealed in the Old Testament, which have come to pass and been fulfilled in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
By the first Advent of Christ, and through the incarnation of the Son made flesh, the promises of God as spoken through the psalmists and prophets are fulfilled: the gentiles glorify God for his mercy, praising and worshipping the God of Israel. The Root of Jesse, Jesus Christ, reigns (even now) over the Gentiles. In Jesus, do the Gentiles trust for their salvation. The old promises of salvation for the gentiles through the life, death, and resurrection of Israel's Messiah have come to pass; God has already done what he promised. He did not leave the world in darkness but has brought all nations into the glorious light of his Son. What God reveals, he accomplishes. God keeps his promises: this is exactly the point Paul is making. And, my friends, God's promise-keeping makes his gift of hope credible.
And we very much need reliable and credible hope because we live in a world that offers hope without hope. Every person, whether Christian or not, hopes for the better. The question is, what is your hope grounded in? If not grounded in Christ, it is a false hope, the worst of lies, because it is embedded and entrusted to something incapable of making things better. Worldly hope is vanity, a construct of men, a false reality pushed upon us by the systems of a fallen world as manipulated by the Devil himself. This is what I mean by hope without hope.
But my friends, there is such a thing as true hope, and his name is Jesus Christ. Hope is the Messiah foretold by Israel's prophets; he is the fulfillment of the scriptures, the Word revealed in the flesh, and He is both the basis and guarantee of that future blessed hope of eternal life. A hope-filled life is saturated in the Word of God and sustained by the "joy and peace" with which the God of hope fills our hearts as we remember God's past actions of love and mercy. Comfort comes as we hear, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the Holy Scriptures, and by this, we learn and experience real, tangible, and present hope. Similarly, we find joy through our communal and glad worship of God, praising Him with "one mind and one mouth." And we worship him because of what he is lovingly accomplished for us through his most beloved and excellent Son- our common worship bursts forth from remembering God's great love towards us!
The Divine Liturgy beckons our participation in shared worship to receive and welcome each other in love, even though various aspects of belief and practice might not yet be "hammered out." Despite these, there is a central organizing principle uniting our worship, and it is this: all who confess Jesus as Lord and believe that God raised him from the dead most certainly belong in the same worshipping family and should gladly eat from the same table. This shared eucharistic fellowship, this koinonia we enjoy, must never be the reward awaiting us after we've wrestled and negotiated through doctrinal and theological issues. Shared eucharistic fellowship should always be the means by which we baptized Christians travel together along the road of life. We keep the main things the main thing: "In essentials, unity, in non-essentials, liberty, in all things, charity" - St. Augustine.
The reward of unity is joy and peace, for as Paul tells us, joy and peace are the divine fruit of our collective belief in the God of Hope. And the reward of a people unified in faith is an abundance of hope. To be the people we are called to be in the present, we need the constant and lively sense of God's promised and assured hope. If our God is the "God of patience," who shall not endure? If Our God is the "God of hope," who shall despair? Look then to the Scriptures, and you will see Jesus; in him, you will find strength, comfort, and assurance of that ever-blessed hope of everlasting life.
Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost. Amen+
