Time, and The Advent
Speaker Notes
The 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, One God, now and for ever. Amen.
Time, and The Advent
William Willimon quote http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=1052
The gospel is a story about something that has happened to us -- something that has come to us extra nos, from the outside. This story is, in the words of the Reformers, an externum verbum, an external word. It claims that by rooting around in our own egos or by reflecting upon our life experiences as men or women, whites or blacks, we really won’t discover much that is worth knowing, unless we know this Jew from Nazareth who is the way, the truth and the life, and are part of a people who follow him. It is only by listening to this story and allowing it to have its way with us that we learn anything worth knowing. As Saint Augustine said, when we look at our lives without Christ, they look like a chicken yard full of tracks in the mud going this way and that. But in the light of Christ’s life, our lives take on meaning, pattern, and direction.
John 1:1-14
The Word Became Flesh
1.1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.
9 The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Hymn of the Universe quote [Section Penses, Chapter “The Presence of God in the World”, part 2 pages 76-77]:
The prodigious expanses of time which preceded the first Christmas were not empty of Christ: they were imbued with the influx of his power. It was the ferment of his conception that stirred up the cosmic masses and directed the initial developments of the biosphere. It was the travail preceding his birth that accelerated the development of instinct and the birth of thought upon the earth. Let us have done with the stupidity which makes a stumbling-block of the endless eras of expectancy imposed on us by the Messiah; the fearful, anonymous labours of primitive man, the beauty fashioned through its age-long history by ancient Egypt, the anxious expectancies of Israel, the patient distilling of the attar of oriental mysticism, the endless refining of wisdom by the Greeks: all these were needed before the Flower could blossom on the rod of Jesse and of all humanity. All these preparatory processes were cosmically and biologically necessary that Christ might set foot upon our human stage. And all this labour was set in motion by the active, creative awakening of his soul inasmuch as that human soul had been chosen to breathe life into the universe. When Christ first appeared before men in the arms of Mary he had already stirred up the world.
Bertrand Russell Mysticism and Logic, and other essays quote [Chapter III, A Free Man’s Worship page 41]:
Such, in outline, but even more purposeless, more void of meaning, is the world which Science presents for our belief. Amid such a world, if anywhere, our ideals henceforward must find a home. That Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins – all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.
Bill Wilson Conversion:
Historians have traced the genesis of the 12 step programs in Alcoholics Anonymous back to the Oxford Group, an evangelistic movement from the early 1900s. Dr. Frank Buchman, a Lutheran minister from Pennsylvania Dutch heritage, was the founder of the Oxford Group. Dr. Buchman experienced a spiritual transformation in 1908 as he visited a small church in Cumberland. Envisioning the suffering face of the crucified Christ, he realized how his resentments had separated himself from God’s unconditional love. He surrendered his will and willfulness to God and began to share his experience with others. His work and following grew, with groups eventually at Oxford, Princeton, Yale, Harvard, Williams, Smith and Vassar. Outreach was conducted through house meetings and members were encouraged to find and work with people who suffered from problems similar to their own.
Bill Wilson, one of the co-founders of Alcoholics Anonymous, traced his journey to sobriety through the Oxford group. After being visited by an old friend, Ebby Thatcher, who was restored to sobriety through the Oxford Group, Bill W. was told the principles of the Oxford Group. He described his conversion experience from that night 20 years after the event in Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age: A Brief History of A.A., p. 63:
“My depression deepened unbearably and finally it seemed to me as though I were at the very bottom of the pit. I still gagged badly at the notion of a Power greater than myself, but finally, just for the moment, the last vestige of my proud obstinacy was crushed. All at once I found myself crying out, “If there is a God, let Him show Himself! I am ready to do anything, anything!”
Suddenly, the room lit up with a great white light. I was caught up into an ecstasy which there are no words to describe. It seemed to me, in the mind’s eye, that I was on a mountain and that a wind not of air but of spirit was blowing. And then it burst upon me that I was a free man. Slowly the ecstasy subsided. I lay on the bed, but now for a time I was in another world, a new world of consciousness. All about me and through me there was a wonderful feeling of Presence, and I thought to myself, “So this is the God of the preachers!” A great peace stole over me and I thought, “No matter how wrong things seem to be, they are still all right. Things are all right with God and His world.”
In the subsequent development of Alcoholics Anonymous, Bill Wilson eventually distanced himself from the Oxford Group in order to reach out to Catholics and other groups who were uncomfortable with the evangelical emphasis. However, many of the traditions of the Oxford Group continue in the A.A. approach and the Scriptures remain the foundation for recovery for many of those in A.A. and other 12 Step groups.
The Collect for the Fourth Sunday in Advent
We beseech thee, Almighty God, to purify our consciences by thy daily visitation, that when thy Son our Lord cometh he may find in us a mansion prepared for himself, through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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