Reflection for Advent IV
By the Rev’d. Allison K. Dean
(Read/listen to last week’s reflection here.)
Listen to this week’s reflection here.
The collect for the Fourth Sunday of Advent reads,
Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation, that your Son Jesus Christ, at His coming, may find in us a mansion prepared for Himself; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, One God, now and for ever. Amen.
The word ‘Advent’ comes from the Latin for “coming”. Unsurprisingly then, the season of Advent has been a time of preparation for the coming of Christ. But not the coming of Christ as a baby, which we might expect since the season precedes Christmas. We didn’t get the first hint or reference to the nativity – the birth of Jesus – until the fourth Sunday of Advent, and even then it was a precursor to the actual birth story. The ‘coming’ that is the principal focus of Advent is what we call the second coming, when Jesus will come again to judge the living and the dead, as we say in our creeds. If you don’t believe me, check the scripture readings we’ve used during this season. Read through some of the beloved Advent carols/hymns: “Great God, what do I see and hear, the end of things created. The judge of all men doth appear on clouds of glory seated…” “Lo, he comes with clouds descending, once for favoured sinners slain; thousand thousand saints attending swell the triumph of his train…Christ appears on earth to reign.” “Hark a thrilling voice is sounding, ‘Christ is nigh’, it seems to say.” (I won’t give any more examples otherwise this will turn into a reflection on hymns instead of the collect. Maybe I’ll do a series on hymns next time. But you get the picture.)
Through these four weeks of Advent, the call has been to be alert, to keep watch, to be prepared, so that when he comes, he will find us ready. In fact, one of the old Advent traditions is to focus on the last four things: death, judgement, heaven, and hell.
If we believe that Jesus is coming again and will evaluate us on the life we’ve lived, then it stands to reason that we should concern ourselves with living the best life we can. As Christians, our best life is not about money, it’s not about “fun and frolic”, as my late godmother Marilyn used to say. Rather, a Christian best life has everything to do with the will and purpose of God. It is about living a Christlike life. It is about faithfulness, righteousness, holiness, obedience. This was the message of the prophets: repent, turn back to God, leave the life you’re living behind, follow God and not the nations around you. The life of Christians is supposed to be different from the sinful world in which we live.
One day all of us will be called to give an account for the life we led while we lived on earth. Yet believers and non-believers both share in the universal human condition as it is captured in Psalm 51:5 “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.” Thus, the urgency of this collect, where once again our petition/ask precedes the address to God: “Purify our conscience…”
The conscience is our sense of right and wrong. In this prayer we are asking God to purify, to cleanse, to decontaminate, our sense of right and wrong. We’re asking him to remove from us all perspectives, opinions, attitudes, thoughts, that are not of him. We’re praying for our hearts of stone to become hearts of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26). We’re praying the words of the psalmist, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me” (Ps. 51:10). When we pray in this way what we say we desire is, as I said in my reflection for Advent I, “A Christian conscience – a sense of right and wrong rooted and grounded in Jesus, not in our cultural norms”. This purification of conscience is what Paul is talking about in Romans 12 when he says that instead of being conformed to this world, we ought to be transformed by the renewing of our minds so that we can know the will of God, know what is good, acceptable, and perfect in his sight.
“Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation…”
We ask for this purification to come every day because every day there are fresh temptations to sin. Every day we face the snares of the world. Every day the devil wages war against God and his anointed. In 1 Peter 5:8 we are told, “Be on the alert! Wake up! Your enemy the devil, like a roaring lion, prowls around looking for someone to devour.” It’s like driving on a road full of holes where new ones develop every time it rains. We have to pay attention to the road to avoid them. Even when we know where all the potholes are, if we get distracted for even a second, we could hit one. The fact that the hole is always there doesn’t make it less dangerous.
We have to be ready every day so that “that… Jesus Christ, at His coming, may find in us a mansion prepared for Himself”
As I was preparing this reflection I learnt of the death of the late Dr. Pandora Johnson. I have no hesitation in saying that she was a devout and faithful woman of God. I can see her now sitting on the south side of St. Agnes. She gave me, as a young person, ministry opportunities that I only fully appreciate the value of now that I’m older. We never want such people to leave us. But her death reminds us that any day could be the day that we are called to meet God face to face and hope to hear those wonderful words, “well done.”
I know I said I wouldn’t quote anymore hymns in this reflection, but there’s one more I want to leave with you: “Thou didst leave thy throne”. I’ve chosen it as a Communion hymn every week of Advent, and I pray its refrain may take root in our hearts:
O come to my heart, Lord Jesus,
There is room in my heart for thee.