27.11.2022
The Light that Shines in your Darkness – Advent Message from Archbishop Michael Jackson
While Christmas comes around very soon and very quickly, Advent comes around even earlier. This year it starts a full month ahead of Christmas Day. Advent does not always get the look in that it should. We always find ourselves busier and more preoccupied by the run up to Christmas than we predicted. It is a brave person who says that he or she will not run into a bit of a panic somewhere along the line. However much we think we have remembered everything, we are almost bound to have forgotten something, whether it be a Christmas Card to someone very obvious or a small gift for someone equally obvious whom we have inadvertently overlooked. But nobody really is counting, nobody really is judging us, so we ought to try to take it in our stride.
Advent, like Lent, has its own special prayer, a Collect that you can find on page 241 of The Book of Common Prayer. We are encouraged to say this prayer every day in The Season of Advent. And I would suggest that you give this a try in Advent 2022 because we have four full weeks of Advent. Why do I suggest this? I do so because it creates and establishes something that most of us need, a rhythm and a voice of understanding where we are at any given moment in our complicated lives. Advent is about accepting the invitation to walk in the light when there is a great amount of darkness. Darkness can describe anything that is troubling us, enveloping us, pulling us down, getting beyond our handling. Darkness can also describe the state of the world, whether it be the war in Ukraine and the plight of people like us who live there and in Russia and in the surrounding countries or it can describe the climate crisis and the fuel and food crisis. Darkness is at home and abroad. We need to protect ourselves and others from the negative force of darkness in order to function as best we can.
The Advent Collect gives us hope in three specific phrases. It talks about Jesus Christ in these three phrases that radiate light: great humility, glorious majesty and life immortal. Jesus Christ was born in a farmyard to earthly parents who had travelled far to fulfil their civic duty. Jesus Christ brought dignity to all whom he met who would receive him and receive from him the God–given majesty that he was passionate about sharing with them in its fulness; we call it The Kingdom of God. Jesus Christ lived and died a mortal life to give life immortal to everyone. Duty, dignity and delight in God everlasting are the rays of light that shine for us in Advent. They are the light that leads to Bethlehem and to Christmas.
As your archbishop, I want to thank all of you for the supreme effort you have made to keep our parishes, our churches and our communities going throughout the Covid–19 times. Without your positive spirit, without your loving hearts and without your generous giving this would not have been possible. Each one of you is a shining, an enlightening example to everyone. I ask you simply to use the Season of Advent to dedicate yourselves to the light that shines in your darkness and in mine, the light of Jesus Christ who comes to redeem, not to condemn the world.
+Michael
The First Sunday of Advent Collect
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 Spirit, now and ever.
© Book of Common Prayer 2004