The Arrow's Path

 Dr. Malcolm Guite has an excellent reflection on the first of the Advent "O" Antiphons.

Advent was originally more like Lent, as there were fasts and things. But was also a time of preparation for Christmas. Now, when I say that, I don't mean it was originally a time to go out present shopping and hanging stockings and all that. It was really a time to remind people that Christmas was coming and get ready for it. This may come as a surprise, but Christmas was not a popular religious holiday until St Francis came up with the Nativity scene and Christmas as a liturgical feast grew in popularity exponentially after that. Go do a Google image search of pre-Medieval Christian art and see how many depictions of Christmas scenes of a baby in a manger and all that there are. Very, very few. Of the major holidays, Christmas was simply not a big thing for the first 1000 years of Christianity. The popular ones were Easter/Pentecost/Annunciation and to an extent All Saints Day or the local patronal saint's feast day. Christmas was way down the totem pole of imp...

I am doing a topical series of sermons for Advent entitled Treasures from the Prayerbook. Here are some excerpts from this Sunday's sermon on the Christian Hope: What I usually assign to the Advent wreath are the 4 themes of Hope, Peace, Joy and Love. The candle symbolizing the Christian hope is the candle that is lit this morning on the Advent Wreath. There are several items-treasures if you will, in the Book of Common Prayer that I could direct you to that has the theme of hope. There are psalms; there are collect prayers; there are some canticles, the entire funeral service is very hope filled. But more basic than that is the definition of what we as Episcopalians mean when we say the Christian hope. Some Christians would define the Christian hope as nothing more than the hope that we'll all be with Jesus one day in heaven in the sweet by and by, as the old gospel hymn goes. Some Christians would define the Christian hope as some formula-some mathematical-like equation...

We kicked off Advent rightly on Sunday with the ending processional hymn (I refuse to call it a recessional) with (one of) Charles Wesley's masterpieces' "Lo, He comes with Clouds Descending." At the risk of having this tune stuck in the heads of my readers all day, I just love the imagery in this hymn: " Lo! He comes with clouds descending, Once for favored sinners slain; Thousand thousand saints attending, Swell the triumph of His train: Hallelujah! Hallelujah! God appears on earth to reign. Every eye shall now behold Him Robed in dreadful majesty; Those who set at naught and sold Him, Pierced and nailed Him to the tree, Deeply wailing, deeply wailing, Shall the true Messiah see. Every island, sea, and mountain, Heav'n and earth, shall flee away; All who hate Him must, confounded, Hear the trump proclaim the day: Come to judgment! Come to judgment! Come to judgment! Come away! Now redemption, long expected, See in solemn pomp appear; All His saints, by man ...