Fr. Wells' Bulletin Inserts

EPIPHANY I

After the Feast itself of the Epiphany we have a season of varying length, which can be as short as one Sunday or as long as six. The Gospels appointed for these Sundays all maintain the theme of “manifestation” in one way or another. Today's Gospel presents Jesus as a mere boy (at an age when boys can be difficult to live with) speaking of “my Father,” and revealing Himself as God's Son. On Epiphany II we read of His Baptism, when the heavenly voice declared, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Then comes Epiphany III, the lovely account of the miracle at Cana's marriage feast which simultaneously saved a poor family from social disgrace and manifested Jesus as the One to bring a new marriage bond between God and His people. On Epiphany IV, Jesus manifests Himself as the One who heals, and then reiterates the theme of Epiphany Day itself, the welcome of the Gentiles into the kingdom of God. Epiphany V shows a simple manifestation through teaching. Epiphany VI describes the “Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.” The ultimate manifestation of God Incarnate yet remains to be seen, but the Gospel promise is that He will indeed make Himself visible to all the world.

Epiphany VI has a thrilling Epistle reading, which contains the verse, “It doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him.” This speaks of the renewal of the Image of God in us, damaged by sin but reconstituted in sanctification. So at the End, His manifestation is our manifestation; His Epiphany becomes our epiphany as well. Imagine looking at yourself in the mirror in heaven! What a make-over, what a face-lift that will be! You will look like Jesus, as the Image of God has been restored.

In the early Epiphany Sundays we have a series of readings from Romans 12 and 13. These readings all describe the morality of the Christian lifestyle. These are impressive in their very simplicity. No painful moral dilemmas, no impossible commandments, just a series of suggestions. But the key to the entire two chapters is in one exceedingly demanding verse: “And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Not conformed, but transformed! The message of Jesus, God Incarnate, is not for the self-satisfied but for those who are willing to be changed, made over, rehabilitated. If you like yourself the way you are, the Gospel is not for you, for the Gospel is all about internal and external change. And that, again, is God's ultimate and greatest self-disclosure. LKW

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Both Christmas and Epiphany celebrate the same event and same truth, but the difference in which the two great holy days are observed is painful. Christmas has become a popular secular holiday, whereas Epiphany (in spite of the slang use of the word itself) is barely known. In churches Christmas is celebrated with much ado. Congregations are filled and God is worshiped gloriously with our finest music and best liturgy. Epiphany is celebrated, if at all, with the plainest of plain services and tiny congregations. For Christmas we decorate our churches and our homes, making them beautiful for the Infant King. At Epiphany we take those decorations down and pack them away. Joy gives way to gloom, in the wretched cold of January. Now which observance is more like the Event itself?

Theologians speak of Christ in His two states, the state of His humiliation and of His exaltation. God's self-exhibition was first of all a revelation of His humility. It may seem rash to speak of “the humility of God,” but it is necessary to remember that His coming to earth was not an interlude, a change of plan, a deviation from the script. The babe visited by the shepherds, the young child worshiped by the wise men, the precocious boy who startled the teachers of the law, all were manifestations of God as He truly is.

St Paul wrote (1 Cor. 1:27-29), “God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, God hath chosen the weak things in the world to confound the things that are mighty, and base things of the world hath God chosen, yea things which are not, to bring to nought things that are, so that no flesh should glory in his presence.” Of course the Apostle was describing his Corinthians converts and the methods by which they had been won for Christ: foolish, weak, base. But the humility of the Infant Church was firmly grounded in the humility of God Incarnate in Jesus Christ.“That no flesh should glory!” The Gospel makes sense only to those who remember why it was necessary in the first place.

The original and most enduring sin was the pride of Adam and Eve, who aspired to be equal with God, “knowing” (that is, determining for themselves) “good and evil.” Their offspring can be saved only by a drastic event of humiliation, a radical leveling of our pride. A desperate situation required a Divine intervention.

The shepherds, the wise men, the doctors in the Temple, have one thing in common with us. Left to our own devices, they and we knew very little of what God is like. But in Jesus Christ we have seen God face to face. “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.” And as we see Him clearly, our sin is exposed, our pride is levelled, and our boasting is put to silence. LKW

Fr. Wells' Bulletin Inserts

THE EPIPHANY

Because we celebrate the Birth of our Saviour on Dec. 25 and His Manifestation (that's what the word epiphany means) on Jan. 6, we might be tempted to think that His birth and His self-disclosure were two different events. His birth, in fact, was the beginning of Jesus' self-revelation as God in the flesh. The Epistle we read on Christmas Eve makes this clear, with Paul's ringing words, “the grace of God which bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men.” That verb “appeared” in the Greek is precisely the word from which “Epiphany” is derived.

It is fascinating to observe how the vocabulary of Holy Mother Church is borrowed, and promptly corrupted, into the secular language. All sorts of people nowadays who know nothing and care less about our holy days are nattering mindlessly about epiphanies. As non-Christians throw around a trendy word, it seems to mean a flash of insight or a surprising new idea. It originates purely and strictly in the human consciousness.

But as the Bible uses the word “appeared” or “epiphany,” it is a far greater thing. When the Wise Men saw the star, they discerned a new flash of light from the skies, as far away from them as it was unexpected by them. When the shepherds were startled by the glory of the Lord shining round about them, they did not congratulate themselves for having a new idea. When Isaiah wrote “the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light,” he did not mean that they remembered to bring their flash lights.

When God became man, and appeared at Bethlehem, to be wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger, something totally new occurred, something which had never been anticipated or precisely foreseen. For all the prophecies of Jesus which fill the pages of the Old Testament, never had it been revealed that the eternal Word would become flesh. That was not a human idea at all; such a thing had not even been revealed in advance. An enfleshment of the incorporeal God (“without body, parts or passions”) was unthinkable, to devout Jews, to sophisticated Greeks, to cultivated Romans alike.

The Incarnation, also known as the Epiphany of God in Jesus Christ, puts the whole human race into the predicament of Job, who was finally compelled to say, “I had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees thee.” Job did not claim to have suddenly stumbled on a new idea; he has seen God Himself! When we see in the mysteries of Christmas and Epiphany God Himself made flesh, we are reminded that Lent is not far off. So with Job let us say, “Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.” As He was wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger, the Gospel story quickly tells us how He was wrapped in a shroud and laid in a tomb. That also is an epiphany we would never have arrived at on our own. LKW

Fr. Wells' Bulletin Inserts

CHRISTMAS II

This is one of those very few Sundays when our first reading comes not from the Epistles but from the Old Testament. It comes from the great prophet Isaiah, who wrote most graphically of Jesus the Messiah. Isaiah's prophecy (a unified book of 66 chapters) describes the person and work of Jesus Christ in such detail that we almost forget it is in the Old Testament and not the New. Isaiah reads like a fifth Gospel.

Our passage from Isaiah 61 is quoted at length in Luke 4. When Jesus returned to His hometown of Nazareth after His Baptism and Temptation, He was invited to preach in the synagogue there. Jesus's sermon infuriated His townsmen, so much so that Jesus and His family were forced to leave town and move to Capernaum, but that is another story.

The key line, the critical verse in this Isaiah passage is “to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” In these words Jesus alluded to the Old Testament institution (see Leviticus 25) of the Jubilee year. In the Law of Moses, every seventh year was to be observed as a “sabbath year,” when no crops were planted and the land was to lie fallow. After seven weeks of seven years, the fiftieth year was to be celebrated as a Jubilee year. Slaves were to be set free, and all land was to be returned to its original owner. The pertinent text from Lev. 25, “Proclaim liberty through the land to all the inhabitants thereof,” is inscribed on the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia,

These customs of the Sabbath year and the Jubilee year had long fallen into disuse before the time of Christ. But devout Jews remembered them and piously recalled which years were supposed to be observed. Biblical scholars suspect that the year when Jesus began His public preaching in Nazareth was indeed the Old Testament Jubilee year.

The public ministry and work of Jesus Christ, which He commenced in the Nazareth synagogue, fulfilled all the meaning and intent of the entire Old Testament ceremonial law. He has brought us to the “sabbath rest of the people of God.” But beyond that, He has brought us to the glorious freedom of the sons of God, in which we have been set free from the bondage of sin, and our birthright in His kingdom has been restored and secured to us. What was stolen from us by Satan, He has given back to us; what we forfeited and threw away He has purchased back for us.

As we have just celebrated another New Year, counted as a “Year of Our Lord,” we are reminded that He ushered in a new era, in fact a New Creation. We Christians should not forget that this is no “common era” year as modern secularists would have us call it, but truly a year which counts time from His Birth. His saving work began our own Jubilee year. LKW

Fr. Wells' Bulltetin Inserts

ST. JOHN'S DAY

The “third day of Christmas” is marked by the feast of St John, Apostle and Evangelist, called “the beloved disciple” in the the Gospel he wrote and styled “the Divine” or “the Theologian” in the language of the Church. This is a felicitous marriage of feast and season, since John's Gospel excels as the Gospel of the Incarnation. Its magnificent prologue is rightly read as the liturgical Gospel on Christmas Day. After we hear of the angels' appearance to the shepherds on Christmas Eve, on Christmas morning we encounter the sublime truth of this great day: “The Word was God.... the Word was made flesh.”

The brief homily we call “the First Epistle General of John” begins with a passage almost as striking, which echoes and reinforces the monumental prologue to the Gospel. John wrote, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled …. that which we have seen and heard, declare we unto you.”

In this passage, the Apostle was dealing head on with the earliest heresy to invade the Church, a heresy which alleged that the Incarnate God did not really become man but only seemed to be human. We call this falsehood Docetism. This heresy can even be found in our Hymnal at Hymn 165, with the appalling line “Thou seemest human and divine.” We wish Tennyson had written, “Thou art both human and divine,” as our Creed clearly declares.

The reality of Our Lord's human nature continues to shock. It was a scandal to the ancient Jews, a stumbling-block to the ancient Gentiles, and an absurdity to the world today. We sinners do not want God to get too close to us. We foolishly believe He can be managed better at a great distance.

John demolishes this heresy with few words. We have seen God, he affirms, not just in some mystical vision, but “with our eyes.” We have handled God “with our hands.” But when? When we arrested Him in the garden? When we examined His wounds on Easter morning? When we touch and taste the eucharistic Bread?

John is relentless in declaring the reality of Our Lord's human nature, sometimes resorting to almost crude language. Where Paul (not known for under-statement!) speaks of the “body” of Christ, gentle and poetic John speaks of His “flesh.” And this truth, John teaches us, is a matter of eternal importance: “every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit which does not confess Jesus is not of God. This is the spirit of antichrist....” (I John 4:2). Likewise, John allows the wretch Pontius Pilate to utter one of the most important affirmations of the Gospel, “Behold, the man.”

In the vulnerable humanity of the Infant in the Manger and the rejected corpse on the Cross, we truly see the humanity of God. LKW

Fr. Wells' Bulletin Inerts

CHRISTMAS

At I Kings 8:27, we find a haunting poignant question, “But will God indeed dwell on the earth?” That is from King Solomon's prayer when he dedicated the temple he had built in Jerusalem. He explained his question by stating the obvious, “Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain thee; how much less this house which I have built.” That is the kind of God which Solomon and the Israelite people believed in. Probably no other ancient people, Canaanite, Assyrian, Egyptian, or whatever, would have asked this. But the people who claimed the Lord God of hosts as their own God were bound to wrestle with this question, “Will God indeed dwell on the earth?”

Theologians have a word for what Solomon and all the Israelite people believed about their peculiar God. The word is transcendence. The Israelites believed that their God created all things in the beginning. Therefore they were quite sure He is before all things, above all things, greater than all things, more powerful than all things. Could a God so great make His home in this mere building, however splendid?

Yet this transcendent God, so utterly different from the gods of other nations, had seen fit to enter into a special covenant relationship with the nation of Israel, the descendants of Abraham to which Solomon and eventually Jesus belonged. That covenant is almost summed up in the Old Testament promise, “I will be your God, and you shall be my people.” Almost! There is a third part of that covenant we tend to forget: “I will dwell with you.”

That seems almost too good to be true. The God who created heaven and earth, who surpasses all things, who sits in judgment on all things—that very God has promised to come and dwell with them. In what we celebrate tonight we have the final answer to Solomon's question. Even if that temple of stone and cedar fell short of God's greatness, we have before us the flesh and blood evidence that God will indeed dwell with His people. “And Mary brought forth her firstborn son and laid him in a manger....And the Word was made flesh” (you know the rest!) “and dwelt among us.”

The God who cannot be enclosed in a huge building, no matter how magnificent, is now made flesh in the tiny infant lying on a bed of straw. What Solomon perhaps somehow foresaw was that this precious infant was his very own descendant, carrying his own DNA. So the answer to Solomon's question is an emphatic “Yes!” God does indeed dwell on earth, in the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ.

When that flesh and blood continue to become present before us, in the bread and wine on our Altar here, God indeed dwells in our earthy hearts by faith. And this God, whom the heaven itself cannot contain, has come to earth as a tiny infant and continues to give Himself in a tiny wafer and a sip of wine.

LKW

Fr. Wells' Bulletin Inserts

ADVENT IV

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Today's Epistle ends with a familiar verse, “And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” That sentence, with a little tweaking by Archbishop Cranmer, is included in the Blessing which concludes the Prayer Book Eucharist.
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The key word of both the text and the liturgical blessing is Peace, a word we hear often this time of year as Christmas approaches. It was also a key word in the song the angels sang to the shepherds: “And on earth peace, good will toward men.”

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When these two texts are compared, some striking facts emerge. First the source of this peace must be God Himself. Peace does not just happen by accident; it is a Divine gift. Second, this wonderful peace which can come only from God cannot be analyzed or dissected; it can only be experienced. Third, this peace is not undifferentiated or willy-nilly; it is a special gift from God to a particular group, “men with whom He is pleased,” to give a more accurate translation. Fourth, this Peace is inseparably linked to the Person of Jesus Christ.
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Peace, as the New Testament uses the word, has a double dimension. It is an inner tranquility which overcomes fear and anxiety, but at the same time (and this is more basic) it is a new relationship with God. Peace is the opposite of war and comes only after the end of hostility and wrath. The story of mankind from the rebellion of our first parents, Adam and Eve was a history of our mutiny against our Creator and of His holy displeasure, which the Bible calls wrath. But God took the initiative in subduing our sin and resolving His righteous anger. This Divine initiative achieved the peace which the angels sang about.
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In the upper room, the night of His betrayal and arrest, Jesus spoke of this peace. “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). It was not just an ordinary greeting on Easter morning when the Risen Lord confronted His disciples, “Peace be with you.” Because of what Jesus had accomplished, a whole new situation had come to pass, an unexpected state of affairs between God and sinners, a drastic reversal which Jesus called “peace.” Peace is the expensive gift paid for by His perfect obedience, His Cross and His empty tomb. This gift is the peace described by Paul, “For He himself is our peace.” That sentence, from Eph. 2:14, should end with an exclamation point; this is a startling, amazing, miraculous peace. As Paul said elsewhere, “making peace by the blood of His cross.” This bloody peace is the peace which made the shepherds rush to Bethlehem. May it be ours this Christmastide. LKW

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Today's first reading, from Philippians, was undoubtedly chosen because of one short verse: “The Lord is at hand.” It would be easy to read the whole passage and skip this verse altogether, as it seems to be an interruption to Paul's flow of thought. He might simply have written, “Let your moderation be known unto all men....Be careful for nothing...” But between these two simple commands Paul inserted a bold statement concerning the proximity of Christ's coming.

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The message of St John Baptist is summed up in the announcement, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Jesus continued to preach that message, and here we see that Paul carries on in the same tradition, with one important change. Instead of “the kingdom of heaven,” Paul says “the Lord.” In Jesus Christ Himself, in His person and work the reign of God had become real, actual, visible and tangible within a sinful world. As the first truly obedient Man, whose unique obedience brought Him to His cross, He inaugurated the kingdom of God on earth. Where Jesus is, the Kingdom is there.
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But Jesus is now in heaven! Is the kingdom not here?

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Imagine the excitement, both fear and delight, which would have gripped a small city in the hinterlands of the Roman empire if someone had announced, “The emperor is on the outskirts of our town.” Paul expected his readers to have just such a reaction. That excitement gives point and edge to the moral advice he was dispensing.
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Paul's announcement is as true and as exciting today as it ever was. Today is the last Sunday before Christmas, a day when even the secular world becomes giddy and frantic. Even the most cynical unbeliever cannot resist the awareness that Something Is About To Happen. Those outside the community of faith try to convince themselves, “It is just another day,” but they do not seem really to believe that. Even a rumor of God being made flesh is unnerving to the ungodly.

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And to the Faithful, “The Lord is at hand.” The same Jesus who now reigns in heaven comes to us now in the sacrament of the Altar, when He gives us His body and blood in the form of bread and wine. Every celebration of the Eucharist foreshadows His visible personal Coming at the Last Day. But at the same time, every Eucharist brings us face to face with Bethlehem. We remember the shepherds who saw the infant Saviour. Did Mary allow them to hold and caress the babe? We are given a privilege just as great when we see, take in our hands, and even eat His flesh in the blessed Sacrament. “The Lord is at hand.” LKW

Fr. Wells' Bulletin Inserts

ADVENT III

Of all the characters of the Bible, the one whose company we would enjoy least is St John Baptist. He is not the sort of person we would wish to have as a dinner guest or as a fellow traveler on a cruise. But he is the saint who features prominently in the liturgy of the last two Sundays of Advent. And if the Baptist does not appeal to us, our Lord paid him the highest of all possible compliments: “Truly I say to you, among those born of women, there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist” (Matt 11:11).

John was great because he was the last in the long succession of Old Testament prophets “which have been since the world began.” But John was the only one to see Jesus Himself. The Son of God was seen by Abraham, Moses, Isaiah and all the rest in a visionary way. John was privileged to see Him in the flesh.

John's prophetic ministry was threefold, as it related to (1) Jesus Himself, (2) Herod Antipas, and (3) the chosen people Israel living in A.D. 27—30. As far as Jesus is concerned, it was John's privilege to baptize Him and to announce Him publicly. “Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world .... He must increase and I must decrease.”

As for Herod Antipas (son of the Herod who tried to murder the Christ Child), John's preaching was distinctly controversial and provocative. John publicly denounced this Herod for his immoral life—casting aside one wife to marry another who was the wife of his brother. For that sermon, John lost his life, and probably most Christians today would be in firm agreement with the Herod family that preachers should not meddle into such things. And if we and Herod are in agreement, we must be in disagreement with Jesus.

But John's sternest words were directed to the huge multitude which went out to hear him preaching on the banks of the Jordan. “O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?......Now is the axe laid to the root of the trees.” The expression “generation of vipers” is probably an allusion to the “seed of the serpent” in Genesis 3:15, the reprobate race perpetually at enmity with the “Seed of the Woman.” So the last great voice of Old Testament prophecy echoes the earliest expression of the Gospel, the Protevangelium.

In addition to pointing out the actual presence of the Messiah, John preached the necessity for repentance, the moral house-cleaning which is imperative as the Lord approaches. As we contemplate John in the Advent liturgy, we face the question: What would John have to say to us? LKW

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The Kingdom of God

During these final two Sundays of Advent the liturgy features the odd and unfriendly person known as St. John Baptist, the cousin of Jesus, who was born just six months before him. Although he is narrated in the New Testament Gospel, this man was the last of the Old Testament prophets. In this “goodly fellowship of the prophets,” he was the only prophet actually to see Jesus face to face. The One Whom Isaiah and all the other Old Testament figures saw only by faith, John was permitted to see right in front of him.

The message of John is summed up in the words, “Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” The expression “kingdom of heaven” means the active reign of God. The word “kingdom” sounds like a political institution or territorial entity; the phrase is better translated “kingship of God.” John's message was simply that God, who rightly claims rule in His creation, can no longer be defied or challenged, since He is about to re-assert His royal authority in the world He made.
Almost at the beginning of history, our earliest ancestors set out to overthrow God and remove Him from His throne. That was the original sin; that is still the essence of all sin. But John announced that in Jesus Christ, the “Lamb of God,” God was about to gain the upper hand and resume control of His world. That was to be His “kingdom.”

John says this kingdom “is at hand.” That expression puzzles us. Did he mean the kingdom has already arrived, was shortly to arrive, or would arrive sometime in the future?

All three of these answers are correct. Because Jesus was physically standing in the middle of the crowd listening to John, the reign of God had already commenced. His perfect obedience and sinlessness showed that the victory over evil was already underway. But very soon, in just three years, that perfect obedience would bring Jesus to His cross and to His empty tomb. That was the decisive victory which proved and made sure that the old kingdom of sin and Satan was overthrown forever.

But the final victory, when Jesus will hand over the kingdom to His Father, will not come until the end of history. This good news of God's reign is summed up in the words, “Already, but Not Yet.” We live between two points of time, the coming of the kingdom in the life of Jesus on earth, and its perfection when He shall come again. And as we look forward to that arrival, John's message to us is simply to “repent,” to change our minds and and to change our lives so that we may be ready for Him when He comes in His glory. LKW

Fr. Wells' Bulletin Inserts

ADVENT II

Collect (which draws from the Epistle)

One of the glories of our beloved Prayer Book are those short pithy prayers which we know as the “Collect for the Day.” Every Sunday and Holy Day of the year has its own Collect, Epistle and Gospel; these are known as “the propers” of the particular day. These are very ancient. They mostly antedate the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. Many of these “propers” go right back to the early centuries of the Church.

But upon occasion Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, who compiled the first edition of our Prayer Book in 1549, wrote an original Collect. This is the case with the slightly unusual Collects we have on the first two Sundays of Advent. These two special prayers are among the most striking and moving petitions of all devotional literature.

The Collect for Advent I plays on a subtle contrast between “now in the time of this mortal life” and “the last day, when he shall come again.” This reinforces the major theme of Advent, “the night is far spent, the day is at hand.” This Collect reminds us that whether the final coming of our Saviour is ten thousand years into the future or within the next five minutes, that coming is the great event which really dominates all time between His ascension and the end of the world. We might be tempted to say it “overshadows” all earthly history. But on the contrary, it is the event which breaks apart the clouds of our sin and pours out God's dazzling light. So the present time in which we live is already the time of God's reign.

The Collect for Advent II reflects the resurgence of interest in the Bible which took place in Archbishop Cranmer's time. Although the Scriptures had always been studied and carefully preserved in the Church, both the invention of printing and new translations had made the Bible more accessible. The king whom Cranmer served, Henry VIII, is infamous for his six wives and generally wicked reign. But Henry made one lasting positive contribution to our Church when he commanded that every parish church in the realm of England have a large folio Bible installed for the use of the clergy and people. To this day that is a prominent feature of our Anglican churches, not usually seen elsewhere.

There are many spiritual tragedies in our time. But all, without exception, are rooted in the Church's neglect of the Bible, in our preaching, teaching, and devotional life. The petition that we “hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them,” should be as urgent as any prayer we pray. LKW

Gospel

Owing to its splendid Proper Collect, this second Sunday in Advent has come to be known as “Bible Sunday,” While most Collects are more ancient, this one was an original composition by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, the compiler of the first Prayer Book of 1549. It was based on the opening text of today's Epistle: “Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning..” Advent is a good time to form a New Year's resolution to read the Bible more diligently. So we will learn the truth, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.”

But the original significance of this Sunday, as set forth in the appointed Gospel, is rather different. The message of Christ's final coming at the end of history is ratcheted up to a louder volume. “And then they shall see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.” This takes place in a context of distress of nations, with men's hearts failing them for fear. Christ will not come into a serene or perfect world, but into the final catastrophe brought down by the tragedy of sin.

The almost final verse of today's Gospel is puzzling: “This generation shall not pass away, till all be fulfilled.” Many have concluded that either Jesus or the Gospel-writer was flatly mistaken, as the final coming in glory did not take place within that narrow time-frame. But this text makes excellent sense if we understand the principle of double fulfillment, so frequently the case with Biblical prophecy. If we open our Bibles, and read the preceding verses, not printed in our Prayer Books, we see instantly that Jesus was predicting first of all the destruction of Jerusalem, which indeed occurred in A.D. 70 at the hands of the Romans. “But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near” (Lk 21:20). This Roman devastation took place, exactly as Jesus said it would, within the life span of His audience. But what becomes clear on reflection is that the catastrophe of A.D. 70 turns out to be a foreshadowing of future events on a far greater scale. As the history of Israel ended in catastrophe, all earthly history will end in tragedy. The “generation” ultimately is the whole body of those elect who are His people through “regeneration.” This “blessed company of all faithful people” will not pass away: the Church of Jesus Christ, no matter how battered and reduced by the bruises of history, will not disappear from the scene before Jesus comes again.

As Jerusalem was surrounded by Roman armies nearly 2,000 years ago, so our Jerusalem is encircled by hostile forces, neo-pagan culture, moral chaos, and militant unbelief. So Christ's message still remains: “Look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.” This Gospel of hope is no easy or comfortable religion, but a message of victory which defies all evidence. LKW

Fr. Wells' Bulletin Inserts

ADVENT I

Epistle

It is still four weeks away when people will be saying, “Happy New Year,” eating hoppin' john, and getting used to writing 2010 when they date a check. But in the kalendar of Holy Mother Church, today is New Year's Day, when we flip back to page 90 in the Collects, Epistles and Gospels and start all over in the Church's Year of Grace.

Advent means Arrival and prepares our hearts and souls for the coming of our dear Lord at His birthday on December 25. But it accomplishes this not by a sentimental reminiscence of the first Christmas but through a sharp clear focus on His arrival at the end of time to take us to our eternal home. Advent reminds us that our faith leads us into the future when “He shall come again, with glory, to judge both the quick and the dead.” That was the promise which the angels made to the apostles as they watched Jesus ascend: “This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.”

If we dismiss this glorious promise as an irrelevancy, then we need this season. Advent is like an alarm clock, to rouse a sluggish church and a sleepy Christian. Today's Epistle from Romans 8 (echoed in our processional hymn, Hymn 9) almost screams at us: “Now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.”

When we read the entire Gospel story of Jesus' coming—God's arrival on earth—from Bethlehem to Calvary to the Empty Tomb to Bethany, we notice how sadly unprepared were the hearts of mankind. The Christian believer, on the other hand, must get busy, getting ready for Jesus to come again. “But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.”

This world does not know the future and can only contemplate it with carelessness or with fear or some insane mixture of the two. But Christians happen to know how the story will turn out; we have already read the final chapter. So we look to the future with confidence, hope, and even with joy. Jesus is coming! That is our confidence, hope and joy.

During this penitential season, keep focused on Advent. Stay close to the Lord and be frequently at His altar. Then you will be ready for Christmas. LKW

Gospel

The Gospel appointed for today makes us think of Palm Sunday and the Holy Week which follows. But no, we are once again entering into the penitential season of Advent which prepares us for Christmas. So what does the triumphal entry of Jesus have to do with Advent?

The word advent means arrival. In these four Sundays we are celebrating the arrival of our King and Saviour. The Advent season prevents us from feeling that we have only a remote or absentee God. The Jerusalemites seemed surprised that Jesus had suddenly arrived at their city. What they did was altogether appropriate. Could they possibly ignore the presence of the Son of God? Although they did not know Him, it was only fitting that a “very great multitude” should go out to meet him and that the whole city should be “stirred up.”

Their shout of acclamation was exactly right: “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; hosanna in the highest.” Those words greeted the promised King, “great David's greater son,” who fulfilled all the future expectations of the Old Testament. That moment on the first Palm Sunday when Jesus rode into the city (not on a war-horse, but on a meek gentle donkey—a sign of peace) was the culmination of all sacred history, from David, from Abraham, from Adam in the Garden of Eden.

And so that arrival points mystically to another arrival, the final Arrival when Jesus comes again at the Last Day. We best prepare for Christmas by meditating deeply on a great future event, when He will come in glory. After Jesus had been welcomed by the multitude, His very next act was to go into the temple and perform an act of judgment. This foreshadows “the dreadful day of judgment, when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed,” the Great Assizes, when “every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.” As the Old Testament had its climax on Palm Sunday, so the New Testament likewise will have its own culmination when Jesus comes again.

That shout of acclamation, “Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord,” is repeated at every celebration of the Holy Eucharist. He who came at Bethlehem and Jerusalem, who will come gloriously at the Last Day, constantly arrives among us when bread and wine become His Body and Blood before our own eyes. The Eucharist He left to His Church points ahead to His great future Arrival. Hymn 202 sings:

“Alpha and Omega, to whom shall bow,

All nations at the doom, is with us now.”

That Eucharistic presence, the presence, here and now, of the Judge to come, should command our attention during Advent and all our earthly days. LKW

Fr. Wells' bulletin inserts

SUNDAY NEXT BEFORE ADVENT

(Feast of Christ the King)

Not all new ideas are bad, and we have an excellent new idea in the feast we celebrate today. The Feast of Christ the King is less than a century old. Originally appointed for the last Sunday in October (the Sunday before All Saints' Day), it has come to be celebrated on the final Sunday of the liturgical year, which our Prayer Book entitles the “Sunday Next Before Advent.” The Prayer Book readings almost invite such an observance, as the Lesson from Jeremiah predicts a wonderful king yet to come, and the Gospel from John 6 stops just short of the text (John 6:15), “When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force, to make him king, he departed again..”

In a time when few earthly kings are left and those few are only figureheads, the message of Jesus' royal office is relevant and powerful. We are more familiar with the picture of the weak and timid Jesus, knocking piteously at a bolted door, than we are acquainted with the icon of Jesus in royal robes. But King Jesus is no figurehead, as much as our democratic notions of morality and society might try to demote Him.

How is Jesus a king? A classic definition of His royal office states, “Christ executeth the office of a king in subduing us to himself, in ruling and defending us, and in restraining and conquering all his and our enemies.”

Christ became king over all things when He ascended into heaven, to be seated “at the right hand of the majesty on high.” His kingship is both future (when He shall finally subdue all things to Himself) and present (as He is already reigning in our hearts and lives).

Do not forget that He is already king, reigning now. In the spread of the Gospel throughout the world and in the resulting transformation of society, we are bound to see the present reign of Christ. When we take a short view of things, then “change and decay in all around I see,” and we can only lament a world falling apart. But when we compare our world to that in which Jesus was born two millennia ago, then we are bound to acknowledge the power and reality of His victory. When we take a longer view, we must acknowledge real progress in the social order. That progress, every bit of it, has its origin in the gentle reign of Christ. So we cease to lament and begin to rejoice.

In that classic definition, three components of Christ's kingship are listed. Surely the most important of the three is the first, “subduing us to Himself.” Hardly ever do sinners embrace the kingship of Jesus gladly. We must be subdued, conquered, pacified, brought under His control. We ourselves must be restrained and conquered, by the power of His love. Come, Jesus, and reign in us! Thy kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven! LKW

Fr. Wells' Bulletin Inserts

TRINITY XXIII (1)

For the most part, our Prayer Book Epistles and Gospels are given in the “King James Version,” more accurately called the Authorized Version. We would not have it otherwise, since that version remains a great literary monument. But very occasionally the 1928 editors of the Prayer Book corrected a word, here or there. We have such an example in today's Epistle from Philippians. Where the KJV reads “Our conversation is in heaven,” the Prayer Book reads “Our citizenship is in heaven.”

Here we have a Greek word politeuma which is founds nowhere else in the New Testament. How the KJV got “conversation” out of this word is a long story which need not detain us here. But politeuma (a word related to “politics”) can be translated correctly either as “citizenship” or as “commonwealth.”

Within the Roman empire a politeuma referred to a colony of foreigners or relocated veterans. Think of a community of people with the same background, living together in a foreign country. Frequently the Roman emperors paid off their soldiers by given them grants of land in the conquered territories, which led to the creation of such communities. These “commonwealths” enjoyed special prestige and privilege in the Roman empire. Philippi itself was a politeuma.

If the Philippian Christians were tempted to take excessive pride in their political status or to find their security in an important earthly city, Paul was warning them and us that such gloating was a false hope.

Today's Gospel reminds us bluntly that Christians have a real obligation to support our earthly political systems, “Render unto Caesar...” But ultimately we belong to no earthly nation but to the Kingdom of God. When earthly political systems crumble (as the Roman empire surely did, as our own system may crumble before our very eyes), His reign remains secure.

To be a citizen is a great privilege. This was as true in St. Paul's time as in ours. A citizen has certain rights and can look to his government for protection. Paul's message in the use of this word is that we Christians enjoy amazing privileges as citizens of the Kingdom of God. We may trust in the protection of the King who has subdued us to Himself and now reigns over us and defends us. With sure confidence we may pray, in the words of St Thomas Aquinas, “And grant us life that shall not end, in our true native land with thee.” LKW

TRINITY XXIII (2)

In today's reading from Matthew 22, we again see Our Divine Lord in contro-versy with His opponents. Running true to form, they attempted to entrap Him with a loaded question, “Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not?” If Jesus said “yes,” He could jeopardize His popularity with His Jewish following. If He

said “no,” He would become a marked man with the Romans. It was a sneaky question, designed to make trouble. The Pharisees made sure some of the Herodians, a faction deeply sympathetic to the Romans, were on hand as witnesses.

The answer of Jesus was brilliant. “Render therefore under Caesar the thing's which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's.” Generally we take this simply as a commandment to obey our lawful government and pay its taxes. This text gets bandied around each year around April 15. It is a text widely known and quoted among people who know little about the Bible.

But there is more here than meets the eye. Whereas we pay our taxes to a government we acknowledge (perhaps grudgingly) as legitimate, the audience and followers of Jesus regarded the Roman government as conquerors, usurpers, tyrants holding no just authority. Many longed and prayed for a military strong-man who would lead a revolutionary war and drive the Romans out of their land. Many expected Jesus to become that leader. These folk paid their taxes grudgingly, but they did not consider it morally “lawful.”

So the question thrust upon Jesus by His opponents boils down to this: To what extent may a godly man obey an illegitimate or unjust government? This was reminiscent of the strange advice which Jeremiah gave his countrymen about 600 years earlier. “Submit to your Babylonian conquerors, even when they drag you off into exile, for they are God's just judgment on your sins.” A sound theology of judgment made Jeremiah into a political traitor to his people. Jesus shared virtually in the same dilemma.

For the time being, the people of God (now I am talking about us) live in two kingdoms: the reign of God in our hearts and in our personal behavior, and the political structures (which may be hellishly horrible and are never perfect) which Divine Judgment has placed over us. The first is the anticipation of eternity, the second is already passing away. We look forward to the time when “the kingdoms of this world have become the Kingdom of our God, and of His Christ, and He shall reign for ever and ever” (Rev. 11.15). But that is not yet.

The whole Biblical teaching is larger than what we have in this brief reading. The people of God may emphatically not “render unto Caesar” that which is not His. But Our Lord does teach us that “Caesar” even at His worst has legitimate demands upon us. The more urgent question here and now is whether we render unto God what truly belongs to God. LKW

A Second Insert

From Fr. Wells, this time on the Epistle.

TRINITY XXII

Today's Epistle gives us a subtle hint that Advent is not far off. Paul wrote in Philippians 1:6, “being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.” This “day of Jesus Christ,” of course, is the great day when He shall come again to judge the living and the dead. The expression echoes the Old Testament prophetic expression, “Day of the LORD,” when God and man together will get to the bottom line. Once again, Paul is saying thatJesus is LORD, and the consummation of history belongs to Him.

But this text encompasses not only the end of all things but also the beginning,

“He who hath begun a good work in you.” That “good work” is God's work, the work of our salvation, in which lost sinners are made over into glorified saints. Note that Paul surely does not say, “the work which you have begun,” or “the work in which you co-operate with God.” Salvation as the Bible offers it is God's act, God's gift, God's achievement, God's glory, pure and simple, from start to finish.

This initiative is beautifully displayed at the Font, when small infants, incapable of conscious faith, unable to make any save the most selfish decisions, not knowing even the name of Jesus, are baptized in the name of the Triune God. This is the sacrament of regeneration, when we pray that God will grant to the infant “that which by nature he cannot have.” In that sacrament God truly gives a second birth and new life in His new creation.

Between that earliest beginning in the simple sacrament of Holy Baptism, and the great “Day of Jesus Christ,” there lies a long growth for every Christian soul.

The markers along this pilgrimage route are conscious faith and repentance, union with Christ, forgiveness of sins, adoption into the family of God, spiritual growth, internal renovation, progress in holiness, separation from sin, restoration of God's image within us, increasing Christ-like-ness. To assist us in this journey God provides the "means of grace" in the reading and study of His Word, in the Holy Communion and all the sacraments, the worship of His Church and fellowship of His people.

The Christian is therefore a work in progress. But Paul was deeply confident of the final outcome for the Philippians. Would he be equally confident of the final outcome for us? LKW

Fr. Wells' Bulletin Inserts

ALL SAINTS' DAY

In the harvest-time of the year we celebrate God's great harvest, the harvest of souls, when He will make His final separation of the wheat from the tares. All Saints' Day is the reminder that we are called to be saints and to join the innumerable throng of all who are redeemed in Christ, including those who have gone before us and all who will come after us. We have a picture of this multitude in today's reading from Revelation, “clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands.”

All Saints' Day is a good time for us to rethink clearly what is revealed to us in the Bible about the after-life. There is much confused and murky thinking on this matter even among traditional Christians.

At the moment of physical death, there is a separation of soul and body. The body is said to “fall asleep in the Lord, waiting for its final resurrection. The soul continues to be conscious. If it is a Christian soul, it is permitted to have sweet fellowship with Christ and all His vast throng of redeemed people. These redeemed souls are waiting in an “intermediate state” between their previous earthly life and their eventual resurrection. This intermediate state is sometimes called Paradise or even Heaven. It is a temporary, not a final, condition.

The is no basis for supposing that souls in this intermediate state suffer any kind of penalties whatever, for sins committed while on earth in the body. The term purgatory is therefore to be avoided as misleading. Many believe that souls in the intermediate state continue to grow spiritually and our Prayer Book seems to teach it. St Paul may hint at this when he writes, “Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you may perform it until [bring it to completion at] the day of Jesus Christ' (Phil. 1: 6). What is certain is that all the faithful departed, and our own loved ones who died in the Lord, are happy and blessed with Christ. God grant that we may join them when He calls us.

At the “Last Day,” when Christ shall come again and bring history to its close, all mankind will be raised up. Our bodies will be reconstituted and made glorious, just as His body was raised up on the first Easter. We will see, touch, and hear each other again. This will be in “the new heaven and the new earth,” the new creation already underway but not complete until Christ comes. While this is mysterious to us and most details not yet revealed, we simply must think of our own resurrection as realistically and graphically as we think of His.

In the meantime, while we wait for Christ's coming, we delight in the assurance that all the faithful departed, both the “heroes of the faith” and obscure mediocre Christians, are tightly bound in one great fellowship of the saints. That is what we celebrate today. LKW

Fr. Laurence Wells' Bulletin Inserts

A new learning resource for our readers that we hope to enjoy regularly.

SAINT LUKE THE EVANGELIST

Oct.18

Speaking humanly, the saddest line in the entire New Testament comes in the Epistle lesson appointed for St Luke's Day. Paul wrote, “Only Luke is with me.” Those are the words of an elderly man, worn out with many years of hard service to our Lord, now in prison awaiting execution at the hands of the cruel Emperor Nero.

When Paul had first arrived in Rome a few years before, he was received by the sizable Christian community there almost as a conquering hero. He went there, of course to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but confident that the Roman imperial government would vindicate him against his Jewish opponents. At first things went well. Paul either won his appeal or had his case dismissed. He proceeded on another missionary journey. But then things turned sour as Nero became demented and hateful toward the Christians. We do not have the details, but we can tell from Paul's final Epistle (II Timothy) that he was arrested, tried, and executed

That was a bad time for the Christians in Rome. People being people, the Church was scattered in many directions. Those who had welcomed Paul at first now abandoned him. “Only Luke is with me.”

But what a companion Paul had for his last days! Luke was a physician, able to bring a degree of relief to a frail and exhausted man. But more than that Luke was the diligent historian who had meticulously researched the words and deeds of the Saviour, who had interviewed the Blessed Mother herself, who had been Paul's companion on his travels. Tradition holds that Luke was one of the seventy disciples we read of in today's Gospel. Surely he was an eye-witness to many events in our Lord's earthly life, to His Resurrection and also to His Ascension. What a source of spiritual strength and comfort to a dying man!

Luke wrote the two longest books of the New Testament, but modestly kept his name out of the record. But we can hardly keep from believing that Paul had Luke in mind when he wrote in 2 Cor. 8:18, “and we have sent with him [that is, with Titus] the brother whose praise is in the gospel throughout all the churches.” That text is not easy to interpret, but it may well refer to the Gospel Paul's faithful companion was busy compiling, or had even published! So it was understood by the author of the Collect for the Day in the English Prayer Book.

The Saints of our Prayer Book kalendar are variously described as apostles, martyrs, confessors, and evangelists. Only Luke and three others qualify for the last title. An evangelist is one who brings the Gospel, the good news of God's saving acts, to a weary, exhausted, and dying world. As we celebrate Luke on his day, we recall our own vocation. There are many who are hungry for that good news. As Luke ministered to the dying saint Paul, may we serve a lost and dying world. LKW