Happy New Year - a Devotion for 30 November 2023, Anno Domini

 

 

The Sunday next before Advent

The Collect.

S

TIR up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may by thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

 

            You may have considered my title above to be premature, but that would depend on your perspective. ADVENT is the beginning of the year on the Church Calendar. Advent means ‘Coming, or Arrival!’ It is the first season on the Church calendar which is a time for Preparation for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Advent Season comprises the four Sundays preceding Christmas and a time of spiritual and reverent preparation. The Collect for the Season extols our meditation, prayerful expectations, and fervent anticipation of the Promise that was fulfilled at the first advent of Christ, and contemplates the Promise of His second Advent in great power and glory.

 

            The ‘Sunday next before Advent’ is actually the transition period between Trinity, and its sharing of the fulness of the Gospel of Christ, and the renewed Promise of His fulfilled Promise of coming as a child born in a stable in Bethlehem.

 

            When I was a small child, my mother and older sister received news of the coming home of my father who had been serving in the US Army in the European Theater of Operations. I was too young to fully grasp the sudden change in radio programing ‘The Days of our Lives’ to nothing but patriotic and military band music. My mother and sister were throwing magazines against the ceiling and dancing about wildly. When I asked what was happening, I was told that my father was coming home. He had yet to set his foot on our doorstep, yet the celebration was intense in the expectation of his coming. It is for this reason that I consider ADVENT to be the very beginning of Christmas. The joy is just as festive as Christmas itself.

 

            Advent Season, being a time for preparation observes our DUTY to prepare for the most majestic arrival of the King of Kings and Lord of Lord incarnated in the flesh on Christmas morning. Simply stated, it proclaims to us, ‘Prepare to meet thy God!’  Even as we are reminded of that which transpired 2,000 years ago, we must also bear in mind that His Second Coming will be with far greater display of power, glory and grandeur than has ever been imagined by the mind of man.

 

            There are four phases of preparation during Advent:

 

First

That advocated by the Epistle for the day – Romans 13:8. These are the preparation of our hearts to fill them with the love of God and the love of our neighbors for “he that loveth hath fulfilled the law.” 

 

Second

Redeeming the time and realizing the brevity thereof. The coming of Christ was prophesied over prior centuries and was fulfilled to the letter. The Second Coming is just as profusely prophesied and will be certain to occur in precisely the same detail as the First. It is important to observe significant political and social developments which inform us the time is near for His Return.

 

Third

            Not only knowing the time, but also assessing the very value of time. Time, like the Trinity, is three dimensional – past, present, and future. The only variable in that equation is future. We know the past and all its sorrows. We know the challenges we face at this present hour, too. But the future is unknown and may be terminated at the instant of God’s discretion – either for this world, or for us individually. The present is thinner than a sheet of onion-skin paper. Even if we pronounce this moment to be the present, it has already become the past. If we are not secure in our salvation, today is the time of decision, now is the time to renew our allegiance and devotion to the Lord who purchased His elect.

 

Fourth

            We prepare by “putting on Christ.” His Person is altogether lovely and altogether worthy of our emulation. But putting on Christ is more than these – it is surrendering the so-called ‘free-will’ (which is only sinful and wicked) or more accurately ‘self-will,’ and pout on the Mind that was in Christ – taking on His will and dispensing with our own.

 

            Jesus approached this preparation schedule by the preparation of His disciples. Two of His disciples were sent to prepare the way for the coming of the Lord into Jerusalem in majesty and a glorious reception. The multitudes prepared for His coming by throwing off their garments and casting down palm branches for His path to travel.  There remained only one area that was not prepared for His coming – that was the Temple.  It afforded the love of money to obscure the love of God, and Christ cleaned the Temple at both the beginning and end of His ministry.  The Church was once cleansed during the Great Reformation, but once again has drifted into hedonism and utter sinfulness. Perhaps it is high time for the Lord to cleanse it again!

A Sermon by Bishop James P. Dees, Founder of The Anglican Orthodox Church - 29 November 2023

 

H

ERE is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus. 13 And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them. (Revelation 14:12-13)

  

Do We Need Jesus Today?

Our blessed Lord Jesus is our Saviour. He reveals Himself to us by His example, His teaching, and finally by His death on the cross on which he died for the sins of the world. His deeds reveal his love for us, that He would "bear our sins upon the tree" that we might not have to bear them when we stand before the judgment seat of God the Father. His mercy and goodness are infinite.

 

One day as our Lord was teaching in the synagogue on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee, a man with an evil spirit cried out to Him saying, "Let us alone; what have we to do with Thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth?"

 

The question asked by this man with an evil spirit in the synagogue in old Capernaum is a pertinent one for all time. The questions comes ringing down through the ages to us in our day; and people today, may well ask the same question: What have we to do with Him? "What have WE to do with Thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth?" Many people in our own day are saying to Him still, "Leave us alone. Leave us alone in ourindifference. Leave us alone in our petty jealousies, and in our petty hatreds. Leave us alone in our sin, in our selfishness, in our rejection of God's Word and of God's ways. We're getting along well enough. Leave us alone! What have WE to do with Thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth?"

This question was asked of Jesus in Capernaum almost 2000 years ago, and today many people are questioning still: Does Jesus really matter? Does He? Is He necessary in our modern living? Can't we get along without Him? What have we to do with a Galilean carpenter who is a total stranger to our modern civilization? His world and ours are centuries apart; and ours is an enlightened age; a scientific age. We are becoming more and more self-sufficient, we think. And as time rolls on, and the universe expands and ourworldly knowledge grows, and our wealth increases, and as our concern with the world around us presses on our minds (inflation, business conditions), the Man of Galilee seems to get further and further away from the things that make up modern living, and he seems to many people, apparently, to become really irrelevant. The writer, Thomas Carlyle, in the last century sums it up for us: The story is told that one dayThomas Carlyle was standing looking at a picture of our Lord hanging on the cross, and as he stood gazing up at the picture, he is reported to have said, "It's all very well, old fellow, but you have had your day." You have had your day. And as we look around us in the world today and see the indifference toward God and toward His moral commands and the attitude of many people toward our Saviour and toward eternal truths, it makes one shudder at times, and we well may ask with Thomas Carlyle, "Has He had His day?" He seems so far away!

 

Has Jesus had His day? Do we modern people need Jesus? We do Indeed! We need Him with all of ourbeing! With all of our souls! He, and He alone, He only, is our hope of joy and life. He only is the means of our peace with God. He only is our assurance that we are the children of God. He is our hope of immortality in God, He is our assurance that the faithful shall stand before the throne of God in glory -- justified, saved, redeemed, redeemed from sin, redeemed by His blood shed on the cross. We need Jesus, indeed we do. And we have Him, we believe through our faith in Him, and we bless God for Him.

 

In our modern world today, we live in the midst of thousands of distractions, and we need Jesus, for one thing, to simplify our lives and to provide a foundation for our thinking. Life is becoming so complicated for so many --with the radio and newspapers banging on our consciousness, and all kinds of philosophies from the materialism of Karl Marx to the idealism of Mary Baker Eddy, of the Christian Scientists, with the TV and telephones and the atom bomb and supersonic airplanes, inflation, threats of war, world unrest, and people bickering over little things. Our souls cry out for a resting place amid the turmoil of this worldly existence. We need some place where our souls may rest secure. We need a solid foundation on which to build our lives -- on which to build character, human dignity, personal integrity, honor, morality. We need an anchor to hold us firmly to THE ETERNAL. And something which Christianity proclaims is the God-Man who walked the earth showing us God. It is the God-Man who was crucified, showing us the Love of God that could die for us, and showing us at the same time the hideousness of Sin that crucifies the Lord of Glory. Our lives today are becoming so complicated. Our minds are bombarded with all kinds of knowledge -- scientific knowledge, historical knowledge, philosophical knowledge, moral depravity and so on and on; and we need something to anchor all of this knowledge to. We need something to show us the significance of it all, something to make sense of it all, something on which we can solidly place our feet amid the times and tides of human destiny. We of the Christian faith have such an anchor and such a foundation: it is Jesus, the Lamb of God. St. Paul, writing to the church at Corinth, said, "And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified." This is simple enough: "I determined not to know ANY THING ...save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified." This is so SIMPLE, so simple that the modern sophisticated man is tempted to scoff at it, it is so elemental. It is elemental, but at the same time it is basic and it is true. Faith in Jesus simplified things, it organized things -- it organizes our lives; if we have enough Faith .... enough Faith to make any difference. When a man can say, "One is my Master, even Christ Jesus," and makes it the business of his life to do His will, life for him becomes so much simpler and happierand more satisfying. And when the storms of life come, he is not distracted or overwhelmed. He is foundedon a rock, and he walks in perfect peace and happy safety hand in hand with His blessed Saviour. Jesus is our joy and our life. He fells our lives full, if we will let him.

 

We need Jesus to make us inwardly sufficient for life, for meeting life, for living fully. We need Him to impart to us His moral and spiritual power, regenerating power, by which our natures are changed, and this gives us the strength to do God's will, to fulfill his purpose, and to be the kind of people we were created tobe -- that is, to be more like Jesus Himself.

And how the world needs such power today! It is obvious that while the world has been making tremendous advances in many spheres of life, it is going backwards morally and spiritually. Though men can now control fantastic material forces, they are still unable to control themselves. Observe the spread of homosexuality and drug addiction. And many people today are finding that for all their education and for all their so-called culture, for all of their advantages, for all of their wealth and power, they still lack the moral and spiritual resources even for being happy and for building a happy home. They still lack the spiritual power to break off some unworthy, soul- destroying habit, or to achieve victory over some besetting sin, or even to control a wagging tongue. Materially, we are sound and prosperous, but inwardly there aremany who are inadequate, who do not have Jesus in their hearts, and their lives are going to pieces in their hands. And try as they will, they cannot save themselves. Men cannot lift themselves by their own boot straps.

 

We all stand in this world of sin where we all must cry, "God help us." And we do, and He does. And it is here again that our blessed Saviour, Jesus of Nazareth comes in. For His coming into human history meansthat God can and has and does help us. He is our Good Shepherd. He said, "I am the good shepherd."

 

In Jesus Christ is love, amazing and divine; there is forgiveness, large and free; there is moral and spiritualpower freely offered to all who will ask for it. In Jesus Christ, God is in action. All the divine resources are focused and concentrated in Him, and made available to us. this is not imagination. For Christian experiencein every age, and in this present day, witnesses to the fact that, when a man honestly and wholeheartedly surrenders his life to Christ, and receives his forgiveness, and follows Him day by day -- that man discovers that he is in touch with great spiritual resources, with the very power of God Himself -- sufficient to sweep his life clean, to change his nature, to rescue him from vile habits and evil courses, and to make him a new man, with a new joy and new purpose in life, the builder of a Christian home, a Christian community, a Christian world. So long as men are morally weak and spiritually impotent, and unable to save themselves (and this is the nature of fallen man); so long as that old problem of what the theologians call sin and the men in the street call "selfishness," ignorance, weakness remains unresolved, Jesus of Nazareth will never be out-of-date; He never will. An honest facing of the facts of our inner lives is sufficient to convince us that we have not yet outgrown Jesus Christ; and we never will. We need Him desperately. We have to have Him. He is our all in all.

 

And so today the church continues to proclaim the gospel that can change men. It is offered to all as the hope of mankind, our hope of eternity, of peace of God dwelling within us. Its cleansing and renewing power is available. We do not have to wait until we feel "good enough" to receive it. It is enough if we feel that we need it and want it -- want it badly enough to get down on our knees and say:

 

Jesus of Nazareth have mercy on me;

Dwell in my mind that I may know thee. 

Dwell in my heart that I may love thee.

Dwell in my will that I may trust Thee and obey Thee.

 

It is only when we offer our minds, our hearts, our wills -- our whole being - to Him that we really begin to know Jesus; and when we give ourselves to Him, we know Him, not only as the carpenter of Galilee in the first century, but now, today as our Saviour, Redeemer, and friend, Now --as the Power of God unto salvation in this world, NOW!

 

In days of old, when Jesus walked the earth, the evil spirit in the man in old Capernaum cried out, "Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth?" What do we have to do with Jesus? What does He mean to us? to me? to you? We know full well. The hymn writer says it for us:

 

How sweet the name of Jesus sounds 

in a believer's ear!

It soothes our sorrows, heals our wounds, 

And drives away our fear.

 

It makes the wounded spirit whole,

And calms the troubled breast;

'Tis manna to the hungry soul,

And to the weary rest.

 

Dear Name, the rock on which I build,

My shield and hiding place,

My never-failing treasury, filled 

With boundless stores of grace.

 

Jesus, my Shepherd, Guardian, Friend, 

My Prophet, Priest, and King,

My Lord, my Life, my Way, my End,

Accept the praise I bring.

 

This is what we have to do with him. God grant that he may be these things to all of us.

 

 

---

[1] Bishop James Parker Dees is the Founder of the Anglican Orthodox Communion Worldwide. He came out of the ECUSA in 1963 due to their abrupt shift away from biblical truths and morality. (JLO)

Devotion on Hymns of the Church - Hymn 2 – O Come, O Come, Emmanuel – 28 November 2023, Anno Domini

 

T

HEREFORE the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. (Isaiah 7:14)

 

B

EHOLD, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us. (Matt 1:23)

 

Before God spoke in eons past, the world was mantled in a thick curtain of darkness which had shrouded it from the moment that it was made, from nothing, by the Voice of God. It was from this smothering darkness that God spoke Light into being, and it was so. The sphere of the earth was exposed to the light of first day, and Creation continued to its physical consummation by the executive hand of the Lord – the same Lord who not only made Heaven and earth, but you and me. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men.  (John 1:1-4)That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name (John 1:9-12) The same Lord who came down at Christmas and humbled Himself to the bed of a manger for feeding animals, and whose coming was heralded by the Light of a Star.

 

The Lord God knew in the Eternities Past man would not be able to achieve any righteousness at all on his own power and will; so the Lord God made provision for a Savior who would come into the world to redeem those who would believe upon Him truly and devoutly. The only One who could qualify to redeem of sin must, Himself, be Holy and Sinless. That One Person was the Lord Jesus Christ – the only Begotten of the Father and the Lamb that was sacrificed for us from before the foundation of the world. But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you (1 Peter 1:19-20, also Rev 13:8)

 

In the Garden, eastward at Eden, man chose to partake of the tree with which Satan tempted him rather than that blessed Tree of Life which would have granted righteousness and salvation from the beginning. So, the Tree of Life was removed to Paradise, and man has since, through his natural deformity of spirit, followed that evil voice that spoke from the ill-winded tree at Eden. But, remember? God had already provided a remedy through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. He promised fallen man a Savior. True Israel looked forward to that Promised Seed from Abraham to John the Baptist. Their faith in the Coming Savior was the means of their salvation; and that faith in the accomplished event of Christ’s sacrifice is the means of our salvation today. Civil Israel was by and large lost to darkness just as the civil-complicit church of today is by and large lost to darkness. True Israel lives in the faith of the people of God in that Promised Seed which is the Lord Jesus Christ. The Old Testament faith continues in the New.

 

Our hymn for this first Advent Week represents the desire of the ages for One to save us from our sins and its consequent death, so the words of an old 9^th century Latin antiphon, ‘Veni Emmanuel,’ or Come Emmanuel, was put to deeper meaning and tune by the Anglican priest, John Mason Neale in 1851. Of course, the hymn has its ancient inspiration from the two introductory biblical passages of this devotion. 

 

O come, O come, Emmanuel,

and ransom captive Israel,

that mourns in lonely exile here

until the Son of God appear.

Refrain:

Rejoice! Rejoice!

Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

 

            What a wonderful Advent hymn we have in the doctrinally sound, biblical truths contained in this beautiful hymn. Its tune – Ephratah, or Veni Emmanuel - is somber and reverential and touched with the color of devotion and expectancy. It is not necessary to have a rousing melody or a ridiculously loud modern drumbeat to rejoice. The quiet rejoicing in the silent and deep chambers of the sanctified heart is the most profound of all. 

 

            Across the dark vapors of evil man-made governments and religion, faithful men and women had yearned for the promised coming of the Lord. The world was spinning into the abyss of ruin and wickedness. A Savior was yearned for to bring Godly righteousness and compassion upon such a morass of error and darkness. O Come rings out the voices of the devout people of God. This was answered in order by the second repetitious emphasis, O Come.  And to whom was the plea made? To Emmanuel – the God that is with us! Amazingly, the Great I AM, does not speak in tenses other than the forever PRESENT TENSE. He is, always has been, and always WILL BE I AM.’ Likewise, He is Emmanuel – the God that is now forever with us in our present years. He is not the God that HAS BEEN with us, or WILL BE with us, but the One who is always and PRESENTLY with us forevermore!

 

            Why, you may ask, do we need to be ransomed? It is because we have been in bondage to sin and death. We have lived lives of the walking dead without God (Ephesians 2:1-10). We have answered to every wish and commandment of our master, the Dark Prince of the Air. We need a new mind and a new will! We need to put on the Mind and Will that is in Christ Jesus. We need to be purchased, ransomed, redeemed, and justified from our lives of death and sin. We have lived in exile among the wicked of the world, but now the Son of God shall appear with healing in His Wings. This is cause to rejoice, and to rejoice yet again and again. Emmanuel shall come to us!

 

O come, thou Wisdom from on high,

who orderest all things mightily;

to us the path of knowledge show,

and teach us in her ways to go. 

Refrain

 

            There is no wisdom apart from the grant of Heaven. We attain that wisdom from that primal fear that there is a God in Heaven, and He is a God of justice. Knowing we fall far short of righteousness, we fear the judgment of God and seek forgiveness. The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments: his praise endureth for ever. (Psalms 111:10) The path of knowledge is that same Narrow Way that leads up to Heaven.

            

O come, thou Rod of Jesse, free

thine own from Satan's tyranny;

from depths of hell thy people save,

and give them victory over the grave. 

Refrain

            

            The Rod of Jesse was the same by which David and the Son of David (Jesus Christ) came. But Jesse, too, is descended from Abraham – not only in bloodline, but in spiritual faith. His grandmother was the epitome of love – the Edomite woman named Ruth who married Boaz. Boaz was the son of Salmon and Rachab – the former prostitute of Jericho. (Matthew 1) The glorious truth of Jesus was that He was in every way wholly man and, at the same time, wholly God. There is not attempt to cover his genealogy because He was literally conceived by the Holy Ghost. He frees us from the tyranny of Satan over our souls through the instruments of sin. We have made our beds, already, in Hell, but Christ saves us from death and Hell by His own victory over death and Hell.

            

O come, thou Dayspring, come and cheer

our spirits by thine advent here;

disperse the gloomy clouds of night,

and death's dark shadows put to flight. 

Refrain

            

            I love this verse for its beauty and perspective on Christ. He is the very original Dayspring who spoke Light and Day into being at the beginning of Creation. Through the tender mercy of our God; whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us, To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. (Luke 1:78-79) He is also referred to as the Day Star by St Peter. There was nothing more cheering to me as a child that the beautiful, streaming rays of the effulgent light of the Sun at daybreak. When a very young boy, I always awoke very early and looked forward to the light of daybreak. It was very much like a new lease on life. The long night was ended, and the day of lively play had dawned in glory. That is the history of the past world of darkness without Christ. He came, and His gentle beams of love and redemption have showered upon our shoulders as a healing balm.  Where the Light of Life beams, there can be no shadow of death. Death is born in darkness, but darkness cannot withstand even the smallest beam of Light. We are those lower lights of God to bring those lost in the sea of life to the great Lighthouse of God’s harboring Haven.

            

O come, thou Key of David, come,

and open wide our heavenly home;

make safe the way that leads on high,

and close the path to misery. 

Refrain

 

O come, O come, great Lord of might,

who to thy tribes on Sinai's height

in ancient times once gave the law

in cloud and majesty and awe. 

Refrain

            

            Our Lord Jesus Christ possesses the keys to that everlasting Kingdom foreshadowed in David. It is the Lord Jesus Christ who has conquered death and Hell for us and made available to all who believe the Throne of Mercy and Grace of the Father. There were no hospitals or orphanages prior to the coming of Christ. Women were treated as chattel, much as today in the dark lands of Islam. But Christ brought love to a world of hate as cool water on the parched desert earth. He gave, not only the Law as a teacher to us, but the remedy of His imputed righteousness to all who truly believe unto salvation.

            

O come, thou Root of Jesse's tree,

an ensign of thy people be;

before thee rulers silent fall;

all peoples on thy mercy call.

Refrain

            

O come, Desire of nations, bind

in one the hearts of all mankind;

bid thou our sad divisions cease,

and be thyself our King of Peace. 

Refrain

            

O come, O come, Emmanuel,

and ransom captive Israel,

that mourns in lonely exile here

until the Son of God appear.

 Refrain

            

            The Lord Jesus Christ stands as our rallying Colors and Ensign of Righteousness. And he will lift up an ensign to the nations from far (Isaiah 5:26) Our Lord is the perfect Plumb Line that establishes righteousness forever. Behold, I will set a plumbline in the midst of my people Israel: I will not again pass by them any more (Amos 7:8) He is truly the Desire of all Nations but they have failed to comprehend His Compassion and Mercy. If we have put on that Mind which was in Christ, how can we be divided regarding the operation of the family, the church, or the nation? He is the true King of Salem (Peace) and the true High Priest of the Order of Melchizedek. As he saith also in anotherplace, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec. (Heb 5:6)

 

            In the Lord’s Prayer, we pray for the Coming of the Kingdom of God. Have we taken the Lord’s Name in vain by praying that prayer? Do we seriously desire His kingdom of righteousness and justice, or would we prefer that He linger a bit so that we might fill our greedy fingers with just a bit more filthy lucre? The Lord has come according to the Promise, and the Lord is Coming again, according to the Promise. Are you ready for that momentous event this Advent Season?

 

Author's Note

My apologies for the length of this devotion, but it is the best I could do without leaving out the beautiful truths it reveals. It is a revised print from the devotion of the same ADVENT hymn I wrote ten years ago, and is my favorite of all for the season. (JLO)

 

Collect - Sunday next before Advent - Call to Action - Anglican Orthodox Communion Worldwide - 26 November 2023, Anno Domini

 

 

The Sunday next before Advent

The Collect.

S

TIR up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may by thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

 

W

HEREFORE I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands. 7 For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. 8 Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God; 9 Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began (2 Tim 1:6-9)

 

The Collect

            A strong counsel for the Christian of any time of persecution, and of those who live, as we do, in a world of watered-down faith and easy-believism. Regardless the number of Sundays in Trinity Season, this COLLECT must always be the COLLECT of choice on the Sunday next before Advent-Season. The title referenced above was not used by Cranmer but was restored to its ancient title by the 1892 American Prayer Book (from the Sarum Missal). The Collect was famous for its beginning words – “Stir up” – so much so that the Sunday of its use was popularly labeled, “Stir Up Sunday”!

 

            The words, “Stir up,” summarizes the fullness of the Gospel preached in its entirety.  It relates to that most powerful aspect of the human nature – the WILL! If it is the will of a man or woman to become rich in the material riches of this world, it is very likely that he or she shall surely become wealthy if that will is strong enough – even to the detriment of character and virtue! The WILL is that overt and compelling manifestation of what is hidden in the heart. The heart that belongs to Christ may, indeed, become wealthy in giving and caring, but wealth is never the superseding goal of such a heart. The problem with the rich young ruler was not his wealth, but that he allowed his wealth to blind his eyes to his duty to God. (see Mark 10 & Luke 18) When we take all virtue, all godliness, all compassion, all love, et all., that we have been granted in Christ, we need to ‘stir-up’ these qualities and devotions from time to time in order to bring them back up from the depths of forgetfulness and revive them to a fresh and lively currency.

 

            The will of the sinner, while free of the godly restraints of righteousness, is a completely free will. However, when a heart is given over to Christ as Lord and Savior, it is that Mind and Will of Christ that takes possession of that former will of the world and transforms the heart to godliness. Do not preach to me of Calvin or Arminius – but only of Christ and His Word. Both these men were stellar scholars. Each ‘got it right’ at some point, but those moments of correct interpretation only followed learning of truth gained from Holy Scripture. So why not, instead of quoting some good man, go to the Fountain of Truth Itself rather than drinking downstream?

 

            You may ask: “How do we ‘stir up’ our Godly wills of faithfulness to God?” We do not, but God DOES! He does so through the preaching and hearing of the Word! So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God (Romans 10:17) But wait! Suppose you have already heard the glorious Gospel and yet sleep? One of my favorite means to allow God to ‘stir up’ my faith is through the singing of hymns – whether alone of with family, or friends. Nothing touches my soul more than scripturally-based classical hymns. (You may keep your Gospel songs filled with pabulum, thank you!) But suppose my heart is closed to every means of being stirred up by conscious rebellion? How will God elect to ‘stir up’ my faith? But I say, Have they not heard? Yes verily, their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world.  But I say, Did not Israel know? First Moses saith, I will provoke you to jealousy by them that are no people, and by a foolish nation I will anger you. (Romans 10:18-19) I personally prefer the more gentle stirring of love and remembrance than to be stirred up by jealousy and anger. But God will use whatever mechanism He deems useful to stir us up.

 

            Though God may use the wills of evil nations in bringing judgment, He only stirs up the wills of faithful people in service to Him. With what result does God stir up our hearts? With the results that our faith again becomes foremost in our daily living, and our fruits of righteousness and good works are multiplied over and over again. Such fruits are not ours, but belong to the Sower who sowed the Seed in our hearts at the beginning. When we are a useful vessel to God, He will use us more and more as a favored vessel in His Hand just as a loving mother may have an old iron skillet or stone bowl that she treasures above even more expensive and beautiful vessels in her kitchen. If we, as Christians, are able to hold our ‘heat of the Spirit’ as the heavy iron skillet holds its heat from the oven, God will be more disposed to use such a proven and useful vessel. Moreover, He will reward such a vessel by placing it is a favored place in the cabinet of Heaven. He will often clean and polish it even more for future use. Personally, I would rather be an old, blackened iron skillet than a beautiful, French porcelain vase on the mantle. If God will use me to prepare food for His Children, how much greater honor can I have?

 

            We have a mere four more Sundays before the blessed observance of Christmas. The Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ as a precious baby at Bethlehem stirred the hearts of kings, rulers, wise men, and shepherds. Christ always stirs our hearts!

 

            When God stirs up the wills of His faithful people, such a stirring can only result in greater production of fruit somewhat as life-giving rain on a parched field planted with wholesome seed. If we produce plentifully in good works, this gives the Father the opportunity to reward us with even more Rain of Blessing. Is there a smell of rain in your heart today, dear Reader?