Reflection for Advent I
By the Rev’d. Allison K. Dean
Click here to listen to this reflection.
The collect for the First Sunday of Advent reads,
Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your 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 living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through Him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
The imagery of this collect – darkness vs. light – has never felt more appropriate than now. Music is playing everywhere, proudly proclaiming that it’s the most wonderful time of the year. Presents are being wrapped with bright, colourful paper, and artfully tied bows. Our homes, offices, and streets glitter with lights. Everything is telling us that this is a time of joy and happiness. And yet, there seems to be a deep, deep, darkness gripping our country.
In a society that is becoming more and more secular it is unfashionable to talk about the devil, about spiritual forces, about wickedness. Such a society wants us to believe that people are fundamentally good, and that good people just do bad things sometimes, that we only do bad things because of our circumstances. But how does such a system of thought account for the shocking and horrific death of a 12-year-old girl? Adriel Moxey was killed and dumped in the bush like a piece of garbage. Surely, we’re not going to say that the person who did that was good, that it’s only their personal history and circumstances that caused them to be the way they are.
No.
There may be some mental health issues involved which require proper psychological treatment. But that neither explains nor excuses such outrageous acts.
No. There is only one way to account for this heinous act, and that way is to acknowledge that there are forces of darkness and wickedness and evil at work in the world. And if it wasn’t clear before, it should be clear now, that we are in fight for the soul of our country. So we had better pray the words of this collect more fervently and sincerely than we ever have before: Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armour of light.
I want to emphasize firstly the casting away of the works of darkness because despite all the talk about us being a Christian nation we live a very un-Christian life.
In 1915 Fr. E.A. Wade wrote the following from East Eleuthera (now known as South Eleuthera):
…in the religious department [Bahamians] are most religious, whilst in the worldly compartment they are devoid of all religious influence. Religion and conduct, speaking generally, have no recognised connection… There is plenty of outward show of religion, and I have heard more pious talk here than anywhere else in my life. But there appears to be no foundation. Any conviction of personal sin and penitence is the rarest exception.
Our chief work then is to create a conscience; and I suppose there is no work harder.1
Here we are, more than a century later, and those words are just as true today as the day he wrote them. We have churches everywhere, and we pray at every public event, but our society has yet to be changed and transformed into the image and likeness of Christ.
For too long we have been a people with selective morality, outraged by homosexuals but silent about the man with a wife and two sweethearts. For much, much, too long we have fostered a culture of lawlessness, selfishness, and greed, where we want to buy our driver’s licence instead of sitting the test like we should, where we say nothing and do nothing as long as we’re benefitting from the situation. When the police set up roadblocks we complain that they’re causing traffic and making us late, but when an unlicenced and uninsured driver hits us we say that the police are not doing enough to prevent it. We lambaste the customs officer who takes a bribe and forget that a “regular” person did the bribing. The elderly are neglected and mistreated. Mothers and fathers are pimping out their own children to make a dollar. Revenge rather than forgiveness is the order of the day. And it’s not just in Nassau; it’s up and down the length and breadth of this country.
Now you may be saying to yourself that these things are different from the killing of child. And you’re right, they are. But once we open the door, once we allow darkness and evil to get a foothold, once we allow them access, there is no telling how they will spread and corrupt everything they touch. Does a man just wake up one day and suddenly decided to rape and kill a 72-year-old woman? There have been multiple shootings in Eleuthera this year. Did those responsible start out with gun crime or did they graduate to that from something else?
Remember what that old saying tells us: a liar becomes a thief, and a thief becomes a murderer.
Jesus says in Luke 16:10 “Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much.”
In James 4 we are called to submit ourselves to God. That submission involves turning away from sin, it involves resisting temptation. It involves choosing to do the right thing even when it is inconvenient and will cost us something, even as Jesus paid the ultimate price for us on the cross.
To submit ourselves to God is to commit to casting away the works of darkness.
And then, even as we cast away the works of darkness, we put on the armour of light. The purpose of armour is to prevent injury. It doesn’t stop the attack from coming, but it shields and protects us from the damage that the attack would cause. In Ephesians 6 Paul tells us something about this armour: it is truth, righteousness, salvation, peace, faith, and the Spirit of God.
In short, if we want to stand against the devil, if we want to be strong in the face of evil, we must be so wrapped up in, and bound so tightly to, God in Christ that we cannot be shaken. When the devil tested Job, and his own wife told him to curse God and die, Job had faith and said, “blessed be the name of the Lord.” When the devil tempted Jesus in the wilderness Jesus responded with the truth of scripture and the devil left, and the angels came and waited on him.
As Christians, as people who say we believe in and are following Jesus, we are called to be imitators of God. We must develop a Christian conscience – a sense of right and wrong rooted and grounded in Jesus, not in our cultural norms. Just as God wanted Israel to be a light to the world, God wants us to be light in the world today.
Every day we face situations where we must choose between right and wrong. God is depending on us to choose the right way – his way – today and every day of our lives.
There is so much more to be said on this, but it is the nature of these reflections to be short, and I fear that this one has already gone on too long.
I pray that all of us will stop and reflect on who we are, on the ways in which we have been complacent (or even complicit in wrongdoing), reflect on who God is calling us to be, and how we might draw closer to him, and become more like him, this Advent, Christmas, and all the days of our life. And finally, that we will pray without ceasing:
Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armour of light. Amen.
1 “East Eleuthera” in Nassau Quarterly Mission Paper. Vol. XXX – No. 119. December 1915.