Your Redemption Draweth Nigh

The Hope Between Two Advents — A pastoral letter from Bishop Mike Stewart.

Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. (Isaiah 60:1)

Happy New Year, Dear Diocesan Family! On Advent Sunday, the Church’s new year begins. It is our New Years Day and marks the beginning of a liturgical season filled with expectation and preparation.

During the weeks of Advent, the Church calls us to a renewed expectation for the second coming of Christ. This will be the conclusion of this present age and the birth of the new age to come. His coming again will be in glory, ‘to judge the living and the dead, and his Kingdom will have no end.’ In Advent we are not so much looking for something to happen, as we are looking for someone to arrive. This will be our Lord’s second advent.

The Church also calls us to prepare our celebrations for his first advent, which we commemorate at Christmas time. His first coming was in humility; God incarnate, ‘born to raise the sons of earth, born to give them second birth.’ Immanuel – God with us. Indeed, ‘It is here, in the thing that happened at the first Christmas, that the profoundest and most unfathomable depths of Christian revelation lie.’ (J.I.Packer) Oh, tidings of comfort and joy!

Set as we are, at this time in human history, between the two advents of Christ, our posture as Christians is one of hope. This hope is renewed year after year, for salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed (Romans 13:11). On the Church’s New Years Day, the first candle to be lit in the Advent wreath, is known as the candle of hope.

A quote that I always turn back to at this time of year comes from E. Stanley Jones, Methodist Doctor and Missionary to India, who once exclaimed, ‘The early Christians did not say in dismay, “look what the world has come to,” but in delight, “look what has come to the world!” They saw not merely the ruin, but the resource for the reconstruction of that ruin. They saw not merely that sin did abound, but that grace did much more abound. On that assurance, the pivot of history swung from blank despair, loss of moral nerve and fatalism, to faith and confidence that at last sin had met its match.’

Beloved of God, lift up your head, for your redemption draweth nigh (Luke 21:28). In Advent, the Church cries out with the whole cosmos, “Come, Lord Jesus!” Our hope is not in human effort and achievement. Our world that continues to tear itself apart, cannot save itself. Our hope is founded solely on God, who has acted decisively in human history by sending his Son into the world, in the fullness of time (Ephesians 4:4) and who, at the end of time, will come again in power and great glory, and who declares, “Behold, I make all things new.” (Revelation 21:5)

As you gather in your respective churches in the coming weeks and hold out this living hope to others in your communities, may the Lord bless you richly with the light of his coming.

‘Lord, let not our souls be busy inns that have no room for thee or thine, but quiet homes of prayer and praise, where thou mayest find fit company, where the needful cares of life are wisely ordered and put away, and wide, sweet spaces kept for thee; where holy thoughts pass up and down, and fervent longings watch and wait thy coming.’ (Julian of Norwich)

Happy New Year, Church! Where meek hearts will receive him still, the dear Christ enters in.

The Right Reverend Mike Stewart
Suffragan Bishop for the West