By Harman Thomas
“Prepare ye the way of the Lord,” the Baptist cries.
Jesus is coming! Repent, and believe the good news.
But the question remains, “How?” How do we prepare the way of the Lord? How do we repent? How do we cast off the works of darkness and instead put on the armour of light? The heart of this question is the heart of discipleship, and it is this heart of discipleship that, I believe, our Advent Collects* uniquely address.
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 forever. Amen.
This prayer calls us to our Advent observance with a plea for grace. The only hope we have of being found with our lamps lit when the Lord arrives is by His grace alone. Without this grace, when we move to cast away any darkness, we will find our arms too weak and too entangled in the darkness to do anything that looks remotely like casting. Without this grace, we have no hope of donning any armour of light, as without grace we all “loved darkness rather than light, because [our] deeds were evil.” If we have any hope of rising to the life immortal when Jesus does come to judge the quick and the dead, that hope grows only in the fertile soil of grace. We begin our Advent preparations, then, by planting our feet firmly in that soil so that we might cast away those works of darkness – putting on the armour of light to turn back the flaming arrows of temptation and sin, which the Devil aims so keenly at the devices and desires of our own hearts.
But what is this armour of light, and how do we don it?
Blessed Lord, who caused all Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and the comfort of your holy Word we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
The ”armour of light,” which is the Word of God, must be deeply internalized – heard, read, learned, and inwardly digested – to become the very marrow in our bones, beyond mere memorization or quiz answers. This embodiment of the Word is the sole wellspring of patience and comfort that sustains us during our “exile” in this passing world of sin. Without this foundational patience, we become impatient with God’s timing and are tempted either to force the world’s redemption ourselves or to retreat into insular Christian enclaves, abandoning the call to disciple nations. Lacking the Word’s comfort, patience turns into despair, and the world then becomes an enemy to resist rather than the stuff of God’s kingdom awaiting redemption.
Armed with the patience and comfort of God’s holy Word, however, we can resist and stand firm, refusing to give up on the world but also refusing to bend it to our will, trusting that the Word made Flesh, who is seated on the throne, is making and will make all things new. Freed from the responsibility of saving the world, but also denied the false comfort of escapism, Jesus calls us to a hope that enables us to serve the world in whatever small ways God has called us to.
Thus far, so good. But we find that the moment we turn our eyes away from our own self-aggrandizing projects to deal with the world, our gaze turns inwards and we become aware that the world is not the root of the problem. The battleline between good and evil runs through the heart of every person, to paraphrase Solzhenitsyn. We are the issue. No amount of world-saving can prepare the way of the Lord unless the individuals who populate the world have taken a good hard look into their own hearts and repented. As a minister, I too am a sinner. I share accountability for the ways the Church’s leaders have failed, used and abused Christ’s bride.
O Lord Jesus Christ, you sent your messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Grant that the ministers and stewards of your mysteries may likewise make ready your way, by turning the hearts of the disobedient toward the wisdom of the just, that at your second coming to judge the world, we may be found a people acceptable in your sight; for with the Father and the Holy Spirit you live and reign, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
In the spirit of humility, knowing that I am just as in need of repentance as you are, allow me to stand in that office to which Christ has called me by His grace alone and call to you: “Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand!” Look into your heart and ask God to enlighten your eyes to see your disobedience and to protect you from wicked self-love that would prevent you from owning your sin and confessing it to Almighty God. Not as some exercise in self-loathing or performative piety – these will only leave you in your sin and do nothing to prepare the way of the Lord. No, confess your sins in the full knowledge and expectation that the Lord will give Himself to you in the sacraments.
It is His joy not to leave us in our sins but to empower us by His grace to put on Christ as we receive Him each Sunday, week in and week out, until He comes in the fullness of His glory. As we receive Him, as we take to our lips the live coal that Isaiah spoke of that taketh away our iniquity and purges our sin, He does the work of preparing His own way in our hearts.
Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us; and as we are sorely hindered by our sins from running the race that is set before us, let your bountiful grace and mercy speedily help and deliver us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be honour and glory, now and for ever. Amen.
And so, we arrive again at grace. Lest we should think that, with one hand on the bootstrap of the Scriptures and the other on that of the sacraments, the Church can somehow pull herself up by her own strength, we are reminded that we are sorely hindered by our sins. Thus we end where we began: with grace. Our Advent journey has led us to put on the armour of light by digesting the Word of God, and becoming the body and bride of Christ. Along the way we have only become more aware of our need to be purified before we can hope to be presented to Him as His chaste bride. Our journey has proven to be about grace and about nothing but grace. In grace we began, by grace we receive His Word, and by His Sacraments we receive His grace, and at the end, probably having poorly kept the season of Advent anyway, we recognize our sore hindrance and again beseech the Lord for His grace.
The good news, friends, is that it is the Lord’s joy always to answer this prayer for grace with His eternal, “Yes!” “For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us.” “Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.”
Our Advent Collects call us to the great and holy work of preparing the way of the Lord in our hearts, and they offer us the ministry of the Church, in Word and Sacrament, to do so. However, they also remind us that even this is the work of God by His Holy Spirit, as Jesus both calls her to purity and purifies her and presents her in purity to Himself. It is by grace that you have been saved. The Lord has done it, and it is our joy to join Him in this work, co-labouring with Him by His grace to become that pure and holy bride, joyful without any stain of sin to mar her joy, that we may welcome the bridegroom without hesitation when He comes.
Now to Him, with the Father and the Holy Spirit one God, be all honour and glory, world without end. Amen. TAP
*The four Advent collects quoted are from the Book of Common Prayer published in 2019 by the Anglican Church in North America. They are a modern language version of the Canadian 1962 BCP collects.
Rev. Harman Thomas is Curate at St Peter and St Paul’s, an Anglican Diocese of Canada church in Ottawa.
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“Prepare ye the way of the Lord,” the Baptist cries.
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