First Sunday in Advent

Advent is a season of preparation. Advent is not an attempt to play act as if Jesus isn’t born yet. Advent is rooted in the reality that Christ has come in the flesh. The incarnation seals the promise of the final advent of Jesus, and fuels our faith and hope of his continual visitation to mature and discipline His Church. We partake in this season by preparing for the king to come. We prepare not just for the final return of Christ, but the regular arrival of Christ to us in His Word and Sacrament of Holy Communion. The Son of God is a member of the Holy Trinity, and thus his arrival is not one-dimensional. Therefore, our preparation for his arrival is not one-dimensional. Our multi-dimensional preparation for Christ requires us to practice repentance of sin, to pursue holiness, and to move towards joyful recollection of God’s great glory manifested in the incarnation of the Son of God. We prepare in these ways because when Christ comes, he comes in fullness, he arrives in Triune glory. We must prepare for Christ to come in humble, righteous, glory.

Collect for the First Sunday in Advent:

Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious Majesty, to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, now and ever. Amen.