And count the forbearance of our Lord as salvation. -- II Peter 3:15

In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The message of Advent is that we are not ready to “greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer.” At least not yet. It’s actually a good thing that we have to wait for the coming of the Lord, as it gives us the time we need to follow St. Peter’s instruction to “be zealous to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace.” We are no doubt covered in countless spots and blemishes at the moment, and we are hardly at peace. We still engage in the works of darkness and our sins are many. Were our Lord to come and survey us as we presently are, it would likely be a terrible experience; hardly the joyous greeting we long for in today’s Collect. Further, as the Prophet Isaiah says today: “All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it.” For all of its order and stability, creation is defined by weakness and the lives we live within it are mortal lives. Death comes to us all, not only in the final sense when return to the dust from which we came, but in the daily sense of each passing moment. 

Watch therefore—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or in the morning— lest he come suddenly and find you asleep. And what I say to you I say to all: Watch.

In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Welcome back to in-person worship! Though everything continues to be uncertain, I’m relieved to be able to gather with you all again after our two-week suspension and am even more excited that we have now entered into a new liturgical year. We’ve started over again; we’ve returned back to where we always begin every year. But the funny thing about Advent is that we begin at the end: the end of all things when Christ returns “in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead.” This is in itself the main point, not only of the season of Advent, but indeed of the whole Christian life. We start at the end. Everything we do is defined by the hope of glory that God has given us and that inspires us to do the good work that God has prepared for us. This hope for the return of our Lord is what empowers us to “cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armor of light.”

​Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that, by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Savior Jesus Christ….

In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Well, these are hardly the circumstances that I imagined preaching under today. This week brought with it an unexpected surprise in the sudden rise of positive cases within our congregation -- hence the suspension of in-person worship for this Sunday and the next. Of all that has been unprecedented about this pandemic, I think one of them has been the way in which it has expanded our categories for what is possible. Who could have possibly imagined back in the Spring when COVID first broke out in our communities that by now -- eight months later -- we would not only still be within its grip, but would find ourselves facing an ever-increasing slope of positive cases. COVID-19 has so disrupted our expectations that it’s really no longer that clear what it means to expect anything at all. Who knows what things will look like next week, to say nothing of next month?

Grant that, having this hope, we may purify ourselves as he is pure; that, when he comes again with power and great glory, we may be made like him in his eternal and glorious kingdom….

In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

In our Lord’s parable from today’s Gospel reading, we find that the ten bridesmaids are having to wait. They’re out to meet up with the bridegroom to join in the big wedding celebration, but the bridegroom is delayed. And all of them -- both the wise and the foolish -- become drowsy and fall asleep. Normal behavior for people who have to wait for something into the night hours, because it’s not until midnight that the bridegroom finally arrives.

Almighty God, we remember this day before thee all the faithful departed, and we pray thee that, having opened to them the gates of larger life, thou wilt receive them more and more into thy joyful service; that they may win, with thee and thy servants everywhere, the eternal victory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. 

In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Yesterday was All Saints’ Day, when we commemorated all of the saints across the history of the Church. We celebrated their radical devotion to our Lord and the extent to which their lives revealed a deep conformity to the pattern of Christ. But all Christians are members of the Body of Christ -- all have been baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus and united to him by faith -- whether they lived uniquely saintly lives or just ordinary lives of ordinary faith. And all Christians will one day perish and depart this world. There are countless numbers of them who have died already. And so, it was in the wisdom of the Church that the day following All Saints’ Day was designated for the commemoration of all the faithful departed: All Souls’ Day.