The First Sunday in Advent
St. Luke 21.25-33

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God.

Beloved Spiritual Children:

Our Blessed Lord Jesus has often instructed us in the true delights of the heart. He has told us how great His love is for us, how He has mercy on us, how intimately He unites us to Himself by His Spirit, how He has stored up riches for us, and how earnestly He longs us for us join His saints and angels in His heavenly kingdom. And when we hear these things, how our hearts burn within us! And how our desire fades for this world and this world’s good!

Yet now, with that same deep compassion and undying love, Our Lord today warns us that we may lose these riches and His kingdom. For while Our Lord God will never quit His love for us, and will never leave us nor forsake us, He knows that we can become so enwrapped in the cares and occupations of our life, in our pursuit for fleeting honors, and in satisfying our present appetite, that we lose our focus and so may miss out on the things that truly make for our peace. Our Lord knows that we can become so preoccupied with ourselves and our own anxieties that we forget all that He has given us and promised to us; and live unmindful that this is not the world we ought to desire.

Therefore, Our Lord, through His Holy Apostle St Paul, gently rouses us from our slumber and awakens us from this false dream which entices us to think only about job and finances, about the here and now. And Our Lord Jesus Himself, in His own words, urges us not to look down or even to look forward, but to lift up our heads so that we might both see what He has in store for us, and even now taste and partake of the redemption that He gives us. For what are the good things in this world—except (at their best) an immature and incomplete foretaste of the greater goods of heaven? And what are the worst things in this life—except a discipline which increases our longing for eternal joys?

Therefore, Our Lord through His Church urges us not to lose sight of Him and His kingdom.  But how does He urge us? By calling us to practice restraint, to discipline both our flesh and our desires, to decrease what we think we must have—especially during these four weeks—all so that we might retain and attain the kingdom He has prepared for us.

In His wisdom, Our Lord has hidden from us the day when we shall know and achieve the fullness of His kingdom. Yet that we don’t know should neither discourage us, nor lead us to live only to satisfy our current hunger. Instead, let our lack of knowledge lead us to apply ourselves diligently to the life Our Lord has given us, and to practice even now to live in His kingdom. And let us do this, not by gratifying the flesh, with its evil desires, but by making no provision for the flesh. And let us walk honestly as children of the light, casting off the works of darkness and putting on the armor of light, even Our Lord Jesus Christ.

For you already know the grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ—how He has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; how He has clothed you in His Spirit with an unstained garment; how He has made you a partaker of His saints in the light; and how He has fed you with the finest wheat flour and given you to drink of the sweet honey from the Rock.

He has done this precisely so that when our world is shaken, when the powers and kingdoms of men begin to tumble, when our lives seem to careen out of our control, and when men begin to lose hope—then we, the children of God, may not fear, but instead may know that our redemption draws nigh, and that our salvation is nearer than we believed, and that the kingdom of God is at hand.

Let us then pray to our patron, the Holy Mother of God; to St Andrew, whom we will  commemorate tomorrow; and to all the saints, that by their prayers we may not lose sight of the Lord’s kingdom, but may retrain and discipline our appetites and passions and desires, and so, by God’s grace, inherit the kingdom prepared for us from the foundation of the world; through Our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom with His Father and the all holy and good and life-giving Spirit, belong all glory, honor and worship, now and ever and unto the ages of ages.

Fr John W Fenton
Holy Incarnation Orthodox Church
27 January 2008