You may wish to light a candle before you begin.
May the grace, mercy and love of God be with us all. Amen.
Collect
Almighty God, as your kingdom dawns, turn us from the darkness of sin to the light of holiness, that we may be ready to meet you in our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Confession
When the Lord comes, he will bring to light things now hidden in darkness, and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Therefore in the light of Christ let us confess our sins.
Lord God, we confess to you the sin which always confronts us. We are sorry and repent: have mercy on us according to your love. Wash away our wrongdoing and cleanse us from our sin. Renew a right spirit within us, and restore us to the joy of your salvation, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
May the Father of all mercies cleanse us from our sins and restore us in his image, to the praise and glory of his name, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
God’s Word - Isaiah, chapter 64, verses 1 to 9 :-
Why did you not tear asunder the heavens and come down, that, when you appeared, the mountains might shake, that fire might blaze as it blazes in brushwood when it makes water boil? Then would your name be known to your adversaries, and nations would tremble before you. You surprised us with awesome things; the mountains shook when you appeared. Never has ear heard or eye seen any other god who acts for those who wait for him. You welcome him who rejoices to do what is right, who is mindful of your ways. When you showed your anger, we sinned and, in spite of it, we have done evil from of old. We all became like a thing unclean and all our righteous deeds were like a filthy rag; we have all withered like leaves and our iniquities carry us away like the wind. There is no one who invokes you by name or rouses himself to hold fast to you; for you have hidden your face from us and left us in the grip of our iniquities.
Yet, LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, you the potter, and all of us are your handiwork. Do not let your anger pass all bounds, LORD, and do not remember our iniquity for ever; look on us all, look on your people
Mark, chapter 13, verses 24 to the end :-
Jesus said, ‘After the distress of those days, the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give her light; the stars will come falling from the sky, the celestial powers will be shaken.
‘Then they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory, and he will send out the angels and gather his chosen from the four winds, from the farthest bounds of earth to the farthest bounds of heaven.
‘Learn a lesson from the fig tree. When its tender shoots appear and are breaking into leaf, you know that summer is near. In the same way, when you see all this happening, you may know that the end is near, at the very door. Truly I tell you: the present generation will live to see it all. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.
‘Yet about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, not even the Son; no one but the Father. Be on your guard, keep watch. You do not know when the moment is coming. It is like a man away from home: he has left his house and put his servants in charge, each with his own work to do, and he has ordered the door-keeper to stay awake. Keep awake, then, for you do not know when the master of the house will come. Evening or midnight, cock-crow or early dawn - if he comes suddenly, do not let him find you asleep. And what I say to you, I say to everyone: Keep awake.’
Thanks be to God, for this his holy word. Amen.
Reflection on the Readings
A story jumped out of my newspaper at me a week or two back, to the effect that “when you see the new John Lewis TV ad, you know that, despite it all, the world is still turning, and Christmas is on its way.” I haven’t actually seen the new John Lewis ad. I’ve seen the Argos one, and that was bad enough, and I can imagine most of the others well enough: the hoards of ads for perfumes and body lotions, for this year’s must-have Christmas toy, whatever it may be, for alcoholic beverages of various kinds, and for Christmas roasts from M & S and Lidl and every shade of store between the two. It all washes over me and means not very much. But when we get to the First Sunday in Advent, then I begin to sit up and take notice.
But our readings remind us that Advent isn’t just a time to look forward to Christmas and to get everything ready. Advent was always at least as much about looking forward not to the first coming of Christ as the Babe of Bethlehem, but to the second coming as King and Judge. Both these readings are what is known as apocalyptic literature: apocalyptic meaning - thank you to my faithful Chambers dictionary - “relating to the end of all things”.
You can know neither the day nor the hour, says Jesus. But things have been getting a bit more apocalyptic than usual of late. The present state of the United States doesn’t exactly fill me with hope and light just now. Extinction Rebellion and other groups have drawn our attention to the perilous state of the ecology of our world. A recently published report on the efforts of all the members of the United Nations (except the United States) to meet twenty agreed targets on biodiversity in the ten years beginning in 2010 reveals that not a single one of the targets set was met. And then along comes Covid, too.
We know more clearly and more fully than ever before just how fragile our world is, and yet we seem powerless to do anything about it. We all want swallows and cuckoos and orang utans and bushbabies and koalas and white rhinos to have a future, but we seem incapable of providing it. And then along comes Covid.
The fact is that we know not the day nor the hour anyway. As our individual selves. Life is finite; for everyone there’s an end to it all. We just don’t know when. So whether I apply what Jesus says to the end of the world or to the end of myself, the message is the same: stay alert, keep awake. There’s stuff to do: don’t procrastinate, don’t put it off, don’t leave it to someone else, don’t sleepwalk into disaster.
Now some of the stuff to do, for me over the next three weeks and a bit will be to do with getting in the food and drink, putting up the Christmas lights, writing and sending the cards, even in this strange and different Christmas, perhaps especially in the strangeness of this year. And I’ll be planning services and even practising a few carols - there’ll be some singing, even if we can’t all sing together in church.
But I also want to spend some time and effort on being the best version of me I possibly can be, and seeing whether there’s more I can do to make the world around me brighter, and the people around me feel more wanted and loved, or even just less hurt and lost. What can I do? What can I help support others to do - the Salvation Army, Crisis at Christmas, Christian Aid, Greenpeace, whomever?
Jesus became a child in a manger for me and for you, to lead us into love, to show us what love is like, to reveal God’s love. God cares about how we are, and how our world is. We owe him our lives, and we owe him our best. That’s why we have Advent - to get ourselves ready, not just our trees and presents and tables.
Statement of faith -
We believe in God the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named. We believe in God the Son, who lives in our hearts through faith, and fills us with his love. We believe in God the Holy Spirit, who strengthens us with power from on high. We believe in one God; Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Prayers -
Guide us, Lord, in our keeping of this holy season. Help us to deepen our faith and trust in your love, and to find new ways of caring for one another and especially for our neighbours in need. On the eve of St Andrew’s Day we pray for the mission of the Church worldwide; and today we pray for Christians in Portugal, and for the Lusitanian Church in Portugal, part of the Anglican Communion. We pray for our own diocese and for Bishop Richard, and today for the churches and communities of the Ross and Archenfield Deanery.
We pray for the peace of the world, as we turn towards Christmas and the birth of the Prince of Peace. Bless and encourage all who are working for peace, and all who seek to repair the damage caused by war. This week includes the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery, and we pray for all who are working to combat forms of modern slavery, which continues to damage so many lives around our world, and even in our own land.
We pray for all who are ill today, and for their care and their carers. This is Grief Awareness Week, and we pray for all who are grieving, and for all who offer support, comfort and counselling. We continue to pray for our response to Covid and for the continued work to produce a safe and widely available vaccine.
We pray for our families and friends, and for the life of our churches and communities. We pray for all who are separated from family and friends, and may remain so over Christmas. And we pray we may continue to look out for each other in these testing times, and keep safe ourselves.
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory for ever and ever. Amen.
Blessing -
May Christ the Sun of Righteousness shine upon us, and scatter the darkness from before our path; and may the blessing of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, be with us all evermore. Amen.
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