The First Sunday of Advent: Give us grace to cast away the works of darkness

It's not too gentle an image, is it?

“O that you would tear open the heavens and come down."

It reminds me of the Ash Wednesday reading from the prophet Joel, "Rend your hearts and not your garments." As in Joel, there is a tearing here. But, in this case, it’s not so much a human act of grief or penance as a divine act of crossing the great divide--of spanning the infinite distance between Creator and creature, made that much greater when we are lost and fallen, as well as mortal and frail.

When Christ the Lord comes among us, truly the nations will tremble and the mountains shake.

If we did not already walk in darkness and the shadow of death, this image would consume us with terror.

And yet, for us, it is a word of hope. As we enter the season of Advent, we sense that we stand on the brink of something wonderful. For the One who is to come will arrive not in power, but in great humility.

The longing of the nations will be filled not in a storm but a whisper.

As silently the Word sinks into earth and sea and flesh to find a home. Ready or not, he comes. He fills all things, pervades all things, with a subtle yet profound power more intimate than our inmost selves.

And his Gift--his holy gift--poured out on all flesh gives us "grace to cast away the works of darkness." As depth touches depth and heart speaks to heart in the transformative union of Love.

We see its signs all around us, if we have eyes to see.

We hear the still, small voice within.

And we sense the first fleeting movements of grace.

But still we are bound.

Still we are bound.

By our own choice. Through our own fault. In thought and word and deed.

By a multitude of sins of a thousand generations

Pressed upon us, willing or no, by our families and co-workers and fellow human beings.

Every community we belong to entices, elicits, and seduces us into sin.

We are conscripted into its army. We give our loyalty to its captain. We buy into its warped stories and twisted values.

Corrupting and effacing the dim, distant shadow of the Image of God

In Whom we were (and still are) made.

Until at long last we cry out:

Savior of the nations, come!

O come, Emmanuel, come!

The Spirit within cries, come!

And the longing of our hearts cries, come!

Come, restore us, Lord God of hosts.

Show the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved.

At first, the light burns and blinds us.

So accustomed are we to walking in darkness.

We feel the scabs tearing off the old, old wounds.

And the well worn ruts of our histories burst,

like old wineskins,

no longer able to contain the flood of grace

That gushes so freely from the Father's bosom.

As the Word empties himself

To take on the form of a slave.

As in the poem about the Magi, we sense this is birth

But also death--our death.

And that we are no longer at ease here

in the old dispensation.

And yet, without this death, there is no life.

For God's face is hidden from us

We have given ourselves over to iniquity

And we are lost, frightened, and alone.

Perhaps most alone when we are together,

in this cold kingdom of death.

Yet somewhere deep within

Lurks a half-remembered promise of God,

A smoldering ember of the Spirit

That unquenchable fire of divine Charity

Lit within us by the Gospel

Brought to light in sacred waters

Wherein we were washed and healed,

Driven out into the desert,

And made Christ's very own.

To this promise we cling

As we claim it and cry out

O that you would tear open the heavens and come down.

Show us the light of your countenance.

Give us grace, Almighty God, to cast away the works of darkness.