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Ben Hicks
Advent 3 features Mary – “Christmas Crossroad”
From Bishop Rob Wright, Diocese of Atlanta
This time of the year we turn to Mary for inspiration. The angel seeks her out and shares God’s wild plan for her life. Mary is at a crossroads- faith and the real world have intersected.
Mary answers God in a song that has three parts. She answers based on who she is, whose she is and her purpose as a co-creator with God. The angel calls her “favored.” Meaning she was aware that God had stepped into her life and made a difference. Her remembering that she is “favored” helps her navigate her feelings of confusion and fear.
Her feelings are passing, her status in God is non-negotiable. For Mary, God is a great thing-doer; a rescuer of the cast outs and the filler of empty bellies. At her crossroad, Mary remembered her God is a promise keeper. Now, she can accept and acclaim that God’s purpose for her life is the highest purpose for her life. “May your word be fulfilled with me” was her song at the crossroad of her life. May her song be ours also.
Advent 3 – Joy
This candle reflects the joy that comes through Jesus’ arrival, and through the salvation he has gifted us. During this third week of advent, this Sunday celebrates the passage Philippians 4:4-5, its verses extolling readers to “rejoice” for “indeed the Lord is near.” This Sunday is traditionally known as “Gaudete” or “Rejoice” Sunday, so called because of the heightened excitement in anticipation for the birth of Christ
During a time where depression is at an all-time high and people seem to be in the most despair, this candle offers a bright light during a dark time.
It is also known as the Shepherd Candle to highlight the joy the shepherds experienced when they received the good news about Christ’s birth (Luke 2:8-20). During the middle of the night, the darkest time, the shepherds encountered angels.
The third candle of Advent has an unusual place. In most advent wreaths, it is the one candle that is a different color, pink, than the others. There is something unique, more spontaneous, and celebratory about the theme of the third week of Advent compared to the others.
In contrast to purple, pink or rose represents joy and celebration. One of the ancient church’s popes gave a citizen a pink rose on the third Sunday of Lent, symbolizing the moment of joy amidst Lent’s fasting and penance. Therefore, when Catholic priests modeled Advent celebrations on Lent, they wore rose-colored robes and set the third Sunday of December as the time to remember joy. The pink or rose-colored advent candle is lit on that third Sunday.
It’s also worth noting that more so than the other three Advent themes, joy is something we associate with spontaneous action. Hope, peace, joy, and love are all things that God places in us and should be ongoing attitudes in our lives. However, hope and peace are generally seen as inner qualities that we cultivate by meditating on ideas like God’s provision. Love is something we do, but also something we cultivate and meditate on.
Joy tends to have a more spontaneous effect. Joy can motivate us to celebrate or worship with glorious abandon (like David did when he danced in front of the ark of the covenant). In that light, it’s appropriate that the advent candle representing joy is a different color, highlighting the different nature of joy compared to the other advent themes.
Preparing the Way of the Lord – Perspectives on Advent 2
Looking at Sin, repentance and Judgement – From Ruth Frey- Trinity Episcopal NY
Matthew’s vision of Jesus’s arrival doesn’t mesh well with our conventional view of the coming of Christmas. No angels or songs here. Instead, we get a strangely dressed man in the wilderness talking about sin, repentance, and fire and calling some people vipers. Definitely not a story that fits into the chatter of a typical holiday party. Yet, John the Baptist is the entry point to meeting Jesus, who declares the reign of God.
Sin, repentance, and judgement carry a lot of negative weight for humans living in today’s world with emotions of shame, guilt, and condemnation following close behind. But what if we considered sin as a matter of how we relate to what we have — be it power, resources, or material goods?
What if we saw repentance as the correcting response when we use our power, resources, and material goods in ways that do not benefit, but rather hurt, our neighbor and the earth?
And maybe being called into judgement is a call to see the world as it really is, in all its glory and pain, and to be given another chance to respond to it all with love.
Prepare the Way – Karen Hanson
When I imagine John the Baptist urging people to prepare the way of the Lord, I think of my time as a trauma chaplain in a busy safety-net hospital in Minneapolis. It was important to have a direct path from the ambulance bay to the Stabilization Room so that our critical trauma patients could be quickly transported to life-sustaining help.
At that time the paramedics had a few corners to turn and occasionally an obstacle that had to be removed in order to get the patient where they needed to go. Years later, a redesign of the Emergency Department created a beeline straight to the Stabilization Room. It’s almost as if the planners took that Isaiah passage echoed by the Baptist literally: remove the obstacles, make the path straight, and the rough smooth so that people might be delivered from death and set on a healing path.
Christians think too small in Advent. It’s not primarily individual work that needs doing. It is not a time of exclusively private reflection. The coming of the Lord is always happening and requires lots of heavy lifting. As forgiven and free people of God in Christ, Christians are called to do the work of removing obstacles that keep people from the full, liberating deliverance of God. They are to level the hills and fill in the valleys so that everyone is on an equal footing. They are to remove any system, stumbling stone, or barrier that hinders the return. This is what it means to prepare the way of the Lord.
Contemporary Christians who seek to follow this Lord have strayed from the way of Christ if they only feed the hungry and house the homeless. These acts may save lives but they don’t transform. The way of the Lord changed the captives into the homeward bound. Jesus’ good news to the poor was intended to upend the systems of oppression that the rich have always exacted on the lowly, among them the behemoth of advanced capitalism in our present day. Preparing the way of the Lord is not just a private, individual matter. It is world-changing and rallies everyone to be involved. As Mary proclaims in the Magnificat, “He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly” (Luke 1:52).
Preparing the way of the Lord is urgent work for Christians here and now, for there are many wounded, lowly, grieving, dying, and exiled people that need a level path to get the help they need. Preparing the way of the Lord isn’t a past event; it is ongoing. The Way is made as people walk it together.
Prepare the Way
Looking at Sin by Debie Thomas
John’s gaunt austerity is the only gateway we have to the swaddling clothes, angel’s wings, and fleecy lambs we hold dear each December. As baffling as it may seem, the holy drama of the season depends on the disheveled baptizer’s opening act. So again, why the wilderness?
For starters, because the wilderness is a place of vulnerability, risk, and powerlessness. In the wilderness, we have no safety net. To locate ourselves at the outskirts of security and power is to confess our neediness in the starkest terms. In the wilderness, we have no choice but to wait and watch as if our lives depend on God showing up. Because they do. And it’s into such an environment — an environment so far removed from safety as to make safety laughable — that the word of God comes.
“Sin.” We associate it with shame, guilt, and condemnation.
Advent begins with an honest, wilderness-style reckoning with sin. We can’t get to the manger unless we go through John, and John is all about repentance. Is it possible that this might become an occasion for relief? Maybe, if we can get past our baggage and follow John out into the wilderness, we will find comfort in the fact that something more profound is at stake in our souls than, “I make mistakes sometimes,” or “I’ve got a few issues.” What ails is something deeper, grimmer, and far more consequential.
Sin, at its heart, is a refusal to become fully human. It’s anything that interferes with the opening up of our whole hearts to God, to others, to creation, and to ourselves. Sin is estrangement, disconnection, sterility, disharmony. It’s the sludge that slows us down, that says, “Quit. Stop trying. Give up. Change is impossible.”
Sin is apathy. Care-less-ness. A frightened resistance to an engaged life. Sin is the opposite of creativity, the opposite of abundance, the opposite of flourishing. Sin is a walking death. And it is easier to spot, name, and confess a walking death in the wilderness than it is anywhere else.
John underscores his message of repentance with a harrowing description of the coming Messiah
I wonder if we squirm because we misconstrue the meaning of judgment. I tend to equate judgment with condemnation, but in fact, to judge something is to see it clearly — to know it as it truly is. In my dictionary, synonyms for judgment include discernment, acuity, sharpness, and perception.
What if John is saying that the Messiah who is coming really sees us? That he knows us at our very core? Maybe the winnowing fork is an instrument of deep love, patiently wielded by the One who discerns in us rich harvests still hidden by chaff. Maybe it’s in offering God every particular of our lives that we give Him permission to “clear” us — to separate all that’s destructive from all that is good, beautiful, and worthy.
Finally, Matthew suggests that the wilderness is a place where we can see the landscape whole, and participate in God’s great work of leveling inequality and oppression.
Unless we’re in the wilderness, it’s hard to see our own privilege, and even harder to imagine giving it up. No one standing on a mountaintop wants the mountain flattened. But when we’re wandering in the wilderness, and immense, barren landscapes stretch out before us in every direction, we’re able to see what privileged locations obscure. Suddenly, we feel the rough places beneath our feet. We experience what it’s like to struggle down twisty, crooked paths. We glimpse arrogance in the mountains and desolation in the valleys, and we begin to dream God’s dream of a wholly reimagined landscape. A landscape so smooth and straight, it enables “all flesh” to see the salvation of God.
Where are you located during this Advent season? How close are you to security and power, and how open are you to risking the wilderness to hear a word from God? What might repentance look like for you, here and now? Where is God leveling the ground you stand on, and what will it take for you to participate in that uncomfortable but essential work?
Debie Thomas: The Voice of One Crying
https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/2470-the-voice-of-one-crying
Sunday links for Dec. 4, 2022
Service, Advent 1, Nov. 27, 2022
Coming up!
Dec. 4, 11:00am – Advent 2
Dec. 4, Christmas Play on Second Advent
Dec. 4, St. Nicholas coffee hour after church
Dec. 4, Bethlehem Walk trip, leave after Church
Dec. 9, Greening of the Church, 10AM – Alice Hughes
Dec. 11, Deadline for Easter gifts to the Episcopal Church Men (ECM)
Dec. 18, Deadline for General Endowment Fund donations
Sermon, Nov. 27 – Advent 1 – Be prepared for the unexpected day by seeking to do good
The signs of ending are all around us now. Thanksgiving has come and gone, the sweet sounds and smells and sights of the Christmas season have arrived. Before you know it, 2022 will be history, and we’ll wake up to a new year.
But all is not ending.
Yes, in so many ways our lives reflect “end times,” but we Christians know that the end times point us toward new beginnings, and that even in the endings, God is making all things new.
And that is what the season of Advent is all about. As we stand in the debris of the old year, we seek out the hope, and look deep into the future with eyes of faith, knowing that “Christ will come again.”
That’s one of the most mysterious, powerful and life giving things about Jesus—he died, but death did not destroy him. He is risen, and in his risen life, is with us at all times and in all places, if only our hearts are open to him. But best of all, and this is the looking into the future part, Jesus will come again.
Jesus will come again, not only to the quiet welcoming places that we prepare for him in our hearts, but Jesus will come again in glory, to make all things on this earth right at last, to bring God’s just and peaceful reign to replace the messes we have made. Heaven will come on this earth.
So we Christians look for the completion of God’s rule here on earth, and we prepare not only our hearts, but we also work to prepare the world around us as well, in the ways that we can. Like those who farm, we do what we can to prepare the earth for the new growth and life that is on the way when spring comes once more.
So this season is full of joyful expectation. And in gratitude, each Sunday we offer to God our gifts of bread and wine, which God in turn offers back to us, filled with God.
And with great thanks and praise, as we take the bread and wine, we offer our own God filled lives back to God, imperfect as our lives are, and will continue to be.
Today’s psalmist lived many centuries before Jesus, but the psalmist knows the same joy that we feel when we come into God’s presence and offer ourselves to God.
“I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord.’”
Pilgrimages to Jerusalem were marked with great joy. Even as the people headed for Mt Zion, they knew that all would not be perfect when they got there. But–even as they were jostled, even in the noise of people gathered in a city, even in the dust and dirt of the streets, the people could see beyond what was true at the moment about their surroundings to what could and would someday be.
They knew that Jerusalem is built as a city that is at unity with itself…. So the pilgrims prayed for its prosperity, prayed for the peace of Jerusalem, for peace within its walls, and quietness within its towers.
Peace has always been in short supply, and prosperity comes and goes, BUT we too know that someday, God’s peace will reign, not just in Jerusalem, but over all the earth.
Just not in our lifetimes, we say resignedly, and that’s why we need this season of Advent.
Because yes! God’s peace can and will reign in our lives, and in the world around us. Advent reminds us first of all that we believe that this promise is true, and second, that as people of faith, we are to be on the lookout for God’s love breaking into this world yet again, and over and over again, a never ending gift.
The Apostle Paul, who expected the return of Jesus sooner rather than later, has some great advice for us as we wait.
Paul wants us to be prepared. So here’s some advice he has for those in the Roman church, and for us too.
Don’t sit around in your pajamas, as tempting as that might be.
Get up and get dressed, and don’t put on just any old thing—
Paul says to put on the Armor of Light.
The Armor of Light has both inward and outward properties.
Wearing the Armor of Light means that we can see more clearly within ourselves. The shadowy places in our lives, the places that need some work, get lit up. We can see, all too clearly, the areas that need attention, the dust in the corners, the repairs that need to be made in our lives, the interior work that we need to do to prepare for God’s fuller presence in our lives.
And second, the Armor of Light pushes away the darkness out in the world around us. When we are feeling overwhelmed by news of the latest mass shooting, or the intransigence of war, or even just aggravated by the little annoyances of life, the Armor of Light shines a ray of hope into all that darkness. We wear those bright rays of hope. People who look at us can see light, and be encouraged, and find some hope in the darkness.
Last Thursday in its Thanksgiving edition, The Washington Post published a section called “Inspired Life,” Section F of that day’s paper. The section consisted of various inspiring stories that the editors felt illustrate the best of us.
To me, one of the most inspiring of all the stories was the one called “Costumed strangers make Halloween wish come true for boy with cancer,” originally published September 22, 2022.
Can Halloween costumes become Armor of Light? Yes!
So here’s the story, which takes place in Hamilton, Ontario. Alexandros Hurdakis was one year old when he was diagnosed with brain cancer, and now, at age five, the doctors could do nothing else to save the child.
His parents asked Alex what he still wanted to experience in the time he had left. He said that he wanted to see monsters on Halloween, because he remembered the fun he’d had visiting a haunted house a few years ago. But he was too sick to travel.
So a neighbor decided to build a haunted house in Alex’s back yard, and then she got on Facebook invited neighbors to show up in costume. The post exploded with people offering to help make a special day for this little boy.
On September 14, the day of the event, close to 1000 people showed up, parading through the streets dressed in spooky costumes. Inflatable decorations lined the streets, and the police officers and fire trucks showed up too.
Alex loved it all.
No one put that day into these terms, in any of the articles I read, but this verse from Isaiah fits what happened that day. “Come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!” That’s what all of the people did who came out to bring joy to a little boy and his parents. They were walking in the light of the Lord.
Alex’s father said that “at the most painful point in his life, he and his family are feeling gratitude for all of the support. We’re very blessed to live in a community like this.” And Arian Clark, who lost her daughter at age three to cancer, said that “it’s humbling and heartbreaking to witness this community come together every single time to support families like ours. I had chills, I cried a lot, I smiled a lot. This place, I swear, there is nothing like it.”
Halloween costumes pushing away the darkness of death, people taking time and energy to bring joy to a devasted family, that’s a whole community putting on the Armor of Light and bringing into reality, if only for a short time, the reign of God that is to be on this earth.
In today’s gospel, when Jesus is talking with the disciples before his death, he speaks of the time when he will return, a time that not even he knows. He makes it clear that in this world, life goes on from day to day, some days more memorable than others. We go about our ordinary activities and forget that nothing about our lives is ordinary!
And then, something happens—that something could be a blinding revelation, or the quiet advent of unexpected grace, maybe the sudden awareness you haven’t had in a while of the beauty of the late afternoon golden light turning everything to fire and light as the sun sets.
So this is the season to be prepared—for the things that we count on happening, our days coming and going—our family times of celebration, our care for the people around us, our putting on the Armor of Light in the ways unique to each of us.
But this is also our season to be prepared for the completely unexpected, for in a split second our lives can be changed beyond recognition, or even ended.
But when we have prepared for that unexpected day, by seeking to do good, we can accept whatever comes with peace and in praise and in gratitude for all that has been, for it’s all from God.
We can give thanks for all that is, and yes, give thanks even now for the unknown things yet still to come, for Jesus will be part of it all.
Giving Tuesday, Nov. 29
Why are we pushing Giving Tuesday, Nov. 29 in support of our Village Harvest food distribution ?
1. There is a need.
In a sermon on September 22, 2019 Catherine wrote “I have had people who come to the distribution tell me that they wouldn’t have had enough food to get through the month without the food we provide.”
The Free Lance-Star reported in Aug., 2018, “about 31,000 residents of Fredericksburg and the counties of Caroline, King George, Spotsylvania and Stafford consistently lack enough food to maintain a healthy, active life. They’re considered food insecure by the United States.” Department of Agriculture.
We are called to do like Jesus – and he fed people both physically and spiritually. Witness the stories of the Feeding of the 4,000 and 5,000.
2. There is a cost to recover.
We are averaging $170(average 10 months) or over $2,000 a year. Help us recover the cost and even add to our resources to do more.
3. The ministry has been successful.
8 years later we have served over 6,800 clients over 64,500 pounds of food. This year the average pounds of food per person is over 12 which at $6 a pound is worth $72. It is clearly one of our more visible and valuable outreach expressions from our church.
4. We have goals and a way for you to help.
Our goal in #Giving Tuesday is to raise 3 months support or $500.
• A $10 donation feeds 6 people, 12 pounds each. It provides 72 pounds of food and $430 in total value!
• A $20 donation feeds 12 people, 12 pounds each. It provides 144 pounds of food and $860 in total value!
Help us on Giving Tuesday, Nov 29
Two ways to donate:
1. On or before Nov 29 make out a check to St. Peter’s with “Giving Tuesday” in the memo line. Send to St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, P. O. Box 399 Port Royal, Virginia 22535
Thank you for your support!
Liturgical Year
1. (From A Pilgrim People: Learning through the Church Year, by John Westerhoff)
•Advent
Advent is a time for hope, for dreaming of new possibilities, a time set aside to rethink the ways in which we choose to live our lives. Advent is a time of anticipation, of watching and waiting, and of transformation.
•Christmas
During Christmas, we celebrate God’s coming to be with us here, to share our human nature. We celebrate because Jesus has come to live as one of us, to lead us into a new life. Jesus will also experience suffering and death as each one of us will. It is in the context of Jesus’ death and resurrection that we celebrate the miracle of his incarnation.
•Epiphany
Epiphany opens with the Feast of the Three Kings, and so we begin our season of journeying, as the wise men did. Epiphany is the season of the longings of the human heart, the invitation to go on a journey led by God, a journey full of mystery, a journey over which we have no control, a journey which we cannot fully comprehend. Epiphany is the season of revelation, as we become more and more aware of the true identity of Jesus, the Son of God. Our faith is deepened and strengthened.
•Lent
During Lent we take on risks, journeying through death toward life, entering a wilderness where both God and the evil one are present. We open ourselves to suffering. Lent is a time of growing into our true identities, as we accept ourselves, with all of our weaknesses and shortcomings and examine our consciences. Through penance we open ourselves to becoming whole again, and we make amends for the damage we have done to ourselves, to others, and to creation itself.
•Holy Week and Easter
The story of Easter is the story of God’s victory, a time of consummation, when now and not yet come together through the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus. All of creation becomes new, God transforms us, and redeems the whole world. We see that, through God’s redeeming love, we have been made saints. God’s reign is here, is still in the process of becoming, and has yet to be. God is always in the process of making all things new.
• Ordinary Time
After Easter, Jesus’s ascension into heaven, and the coming of the Holy Spirit to us at Pentecost, we accept responsibility for being and becoming Christ’s body in the world. We are called by Jesus to live in community, our lives together guided not only by the example of Jesus, but by the guidance of the Holy Spirit. As we live our lives in the Spirit, we “explore the implications of Easter and endeavor to live into our baptisms” (John Westerhoff, A Pilgrim People: Learning through the Church Year)
2. Church Liturgical Year Table
Commentary, Nov. 20, 2022, “Christ the King” Sunday
I.Theme – Jesus – A real king – bringing God’s reign of justice and mercy to earth
The lectionary readings are here or individually:
Old Testament – Jeremiah 23:1-6
Psalm – Psalm 46
Epistle –Colossians 1:11-20
Gospel – Luke 23:33-43
This is a transitional Sunday. Christ the King Sunday signals the end of Ordinary Time and the end of our use of the Year C readings.
The end of year readings are partially about kingship – good kings, bad kings and our treatment of them. Jeremiah provides an analysis of bad kings – blamed for scattering the sheep and being evil. This is not just one ruler but a trend.
A secondary theme is God’s role in all of this. God will make good kings again and restore the people’s relationship to the earth and to each other. The Psalm demonstrates God’s protection and like a King defense of the people. It is a praise psalm. While there will be troubles, dislocations and woundes, ultimately God will be bring peace end division.
All of this culminates in the Gospel reading. Jesus is God’s way of ruling in this world and in the world to come. His ruling was born out of struggle. We are there with him with criminals on either side of him.
Then we see Jesus exercising his dominion in the midst of mockery, coercion, and arrogance. His two "words" from the cross in Luke’s account enact his authority. The first (Luke 23:34) fits powerfully in the narrative: "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing!"
The second (Luke 23:43) anticipates Jesus’ authority as the Son of Man, conferring mercy on sinners in God’s ultimate judgment: "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise." He is there meeting the needs of those around him.
Joining Jesus in paradise had nothing to do with dying. It had nothing to do with being raised from the dead. It had everything to do with seeing beyond the appearances to the truth, that God is victorious in the cross. It has everything to do with the thief’s realization that his own condemnation on the cross bore no relationship to his standing before God.
He asks neither to be rescued from this plight nor revenged for his suffering. Rather, he wants only to be remembered, to not be forgotten. And how does Jesus respond? He exceeds even the criminal’s wildest expectations, declaring that today, even now, he would enter with Jesus into paradise. In that moment, he became free.
The Gospel is the story of how Jesus the Messiah of God brought God’s reign of justice and mercy to earth, and Luke’s account presents the crucified Messiah enacting God’s reign, surrounded by mocking, brutal violence.
David Lose writes how Jesus became a real king. "What kind of king is this, who welcomes a criminal into his realm and promises relief and release amid obvious agony? It is a king who refuses to conform to the expectations of this world, who will be governed neither by its limited vision of worthiness nor its truncated understanding of justice. It is a king who is not content to rule from afar, but rather comes to meet us in our weakness and need. It is a king willing to embrace all, forgive all, redeem all, because that is his deepest and truest nature. It is, finally, our king, come to usher us into his kingdom even as he implores us to recognize and make more manifest that kingdom already around us.
II. Summary
Old Testament – Jeremiah 23:1-6
In Chapters 21-22, Jeremiah has made prophecies about four of the five last kings of Judah. Three of these he considers bad, for siding with foreigners.
Rather than predicting the fate of the last one, Zedekiah, God now speaks (through Jeremiah) about an ideal future king. God blames Judah’s kings (“shepherds”) for scattering his “sheep”; they will be punished “for your evil doings” (v. 2). But God will bring the people together again, to perfect safety, and will set good kings (“shepherds”, v. 4) over them. Their state will be as God originally intended: in the first creation story, God commanded humans to “be fruitful and multiply” (v. 3). God makes a formal pronouncement (“the days are surely coming”, v. 5) when God will “raise up” a godly “Branch” (shoot, descendant) of David’s line who will be wise, just and godly, ruling over both “Judah” (v. 6) and “Israel”. (Zedekiah is alluded to in a wordplay, the Hebrew for “righteousness” being tzidkenu.) Later prophets, in dark times of unfaithful kings, recalled this ideal rule and promised its realization in the future. This led to expecting a new era, when God would himself rule the faithful.
Psalm – Psalm 46
This psalm tells of God’s protection and defense of his people. Perhaps the psalmist thinks of Isaiah 8:6-7; there “streams” (v. 4) are what God provides to the godly. The “city of God” is Jerusalem, God’s dwelling place on earth. Even if natural disasters (earthquakes, vv. 2-3) or political turmoil (v. 6) occur, or earth returns to its primordial chaotic state (“waters”, v. 3), God will remain (“not be moved”, v. 5), answering night-long prayer in the “morning”. Israel has suffered “desolations” (v. 8) for not doing God’s will. In a liturgy, a priest or prophet invites participants to consider God’s deeds: he ends political turmoil, bringing peace (v. 9). Recognize that God is supreme over all the earth! (v. 10) He is with his people and keeps them safe (v. 11).
Epistle – Colossians 1:11-20
The author has heard of the trust in Christ his readers have because of their hope of eternal life. “This hope … is bearing fruit and growing … from the day you … truly comprehended the grace of God” (his freely given gift of love expressed in Christ, vv. 5-6). So he prays for them that they may experience God’s ways to the full, leading the ethical lives God expects, and growing in knowledge of him (v. 10). Faced with deviant teaching, may God make them “strong” (v. 11) and “prepared to endure everything”. God (in Christ) has “rescued us” (v. 13) from the power of evil (“darkness”) and moved us to Christ’s realm, enabling us to share with others in the “inheritance” (v. 12, in being God’s children).
Vv. 15-20 is a hymn about Christ (“He”); he is how we see (and access) God (“image”). Angelology was popular at the time; “thrones …” (v. 16) were orders of angels; each was “created”, had its origin “in him”, and exists “for him”; any power they have is subordinate to Christ’s. The whole of creation, both heavenly and earthly, were created “through him” (v. 16), with his participation. He is the “firstborn” (v. 18), the inheritor from the Father, of created-ness; he governs it and is the cohesive power of the universe (v. 17). He existed “before all things”, before the first creative act. Greeks saw the “head” (v. 18) as the body’s source of life and growth. Christ is this to the Church, and “head” of it in the modern sense. He is “the beginning”, the nucleus of restoration of humanity to union with God, of the new created-ness. In his death (“blood of his cross”, v. 20), resurrection, and ascension to the Father, he is the forerunner (“firstborn”, v. 18) of our elevation to being with the Father, of our reconciliation with the Father (v. 20). Christians at Colossae tried to find ultimate power and truth in various deities, but in Christ all power and ultimate truth is present (v. 19).
Gospel – Luke 23:33-43
Jesus has been betrayed, arrested, mocked, beaten, and sentenced to death. He, Simon of Cyrene (carrying the crossbar), two criminals and a few police have walked to Calvary, “the place that is called The Skull” (v. 33).
Jesus continues his ministry of giving forgiveness to those who have not heard the Good News (v. 34). The division of his clothing fulfills the prophecy in Psalm 22:18; to be deprived of one’s clothing was to lose one’s identity. (Biblical examples are prisoners, slaves, prostitutes and damned people.)
The mob contemplates what is happening, but the “leaders” (v. 35) taunt Jesus: they blaspheme against God. In accord with Psalm 69:21, a psalm of the innocently suffering godly one, Jesus is offered “sour wine” (v. 36) – to revive him, and to prolong his ordeal.
Ironically, “Messiah of God, his chosen one” (v. 35) and “King of the Jews” (v. 38) are all true.
Three points emerge from this passage. First, we note the passage in general functions as a "last temptation of Christ. " Jesus refuses to subvert God’s plan by saving himself from a horrible death.
One might even say that the temptation here for Jesus to act in some way to "save himself" might even be stronger than it was in Luke 3. First, Luke skillfully uses language that puts Jesus’ trials here in a biblical context of unjust suffering. In v. 35 the high priests are said to "mock" him. A placard was placed around the criminal’s neck, bearing an “inscription” (v. 38) stating his crime.
Second, we see the recognition by the evildoer of Jesus’ kingdom. One criminal joins with the mob (v. 39) but the other responds positively to Jesus (vv. 40-41). For him there is salvation; Jesus pronounces him free of sin. Only a king can give pardon. (“Paradise”, v. 43, was the Jewish name for the temporary resting place of the godly dead.)
Third, we note the idea that today is the right time to respond to the claims of the kingdom on us.
David Lose writes "The kingdom of God (or of heaven, in Matthew) is not simply about supplanting an earthly ruler with a heavenly one. In heralding the coming kingdom of God, Jesus was not advocating regime change. Rather, Jesus was announcing the advent of an entirely different way of being in relationship with each other and with God. It’s not the ruler that changes, but the realm in which we live… But the kingdom — or, maybe better, realm — of God that Jesus proclaims represents a whole new reality where nothing is the same — not our relationships or rules, not our view of self or others, not our priorities or principles — nothing. Everything we thought we knew about kings and kingdoms, in fact, gets turned right on its head.
"Further, the realm of God over which Christ is king is not lurking somewhere "out there." It is already here among us, heralded by Christ’s preaching and made manifest in his death and resurrection. Yes, some future consummation may await us, yet the new realm is also already here, in our very midst. That means, of course, that we presently live in both realms, citizens of this world and citizens of the kingdom Jesus inaugurated.
" No longer can we keep our faith a private affair and ignore the need of our neighbor. No longer can we sing robust and rousing hymns about God’s glory and majesty and ignore the plight of God’s good earth. No longer can we pray that God’s kingdom come and yet manage our wealth as if it actually belonged — rather than was entrusted — to us. And no longer can we relegate the realm of God to a comfortably distant — or for that matter frighteningly near — future. The realm and rule of God is all around us, beckoning us to live by its vision and values even now.
Three Teaching Points for Advent
Three Teaching Points for Advent by Sarah Bentley Allred
“Christmas is a big mystery. We do not understand how exactly God comes to be among us in human form. Taking time to prepare to celebrate Christmas allows us to enter more fully into the mystery. As we say in Godly Play, if we don’t take time to get ready for Christmas, we could “walk right by this mystery” without ever really experiencing it. And so, we spend the four weeks before Christmas anticipating and preparing for the coming of Christ.
“Advent has a double spiritual meaning. While we are anticipating the arrival of the birth of Jesus, we are also anticipating the arrival of the second coming, when Jesus will return for the Final Judgement.
1. Anticipation “Advent is a season of preparation, expectant waiting. We are preparing to remember and to celebrate the birth of Jesus. It is a time to practice waiting, a universal experience for people of all ages. During this time, we remember the prophets that foretold Jesus’ birth (see Isaiah 7:14, Isaiah 9:6-7, Jeremiah 23:5-6) and the nine-month journey of Mary and Joseph before the birth of Jesus (see Luke 1-2, Matthew 1).
“People prepare to enter the mystery of Christmas in different ways. You might invite members of the congregation to explore how Christians intentionally anticipate Christmas through song, prayer, scripture, liturgy, service, Advent wreaths, or Advent calendars.
2. Incarnation “During Advent, the core of what we are waiting for, anticipating, is the Incarnation, God becoming human. As Christians, we believe that God loves us, and all of creation, so much that God became embodied in the form of Jesus. The Incarnation is an incredible mystery—we do not know exactly how God became human. God’s action in taking on flesh sanctifies our flesh – it makes holy the skin we wear. Advent provides an opportunity to explore what the Incarnation means for our lives.
“What does God living in a body mean for our relationship to the human body, our body as well as the other bodies in this world? What does God’s choice to inhabit the body of a baby mean?
3. Immanuel (or Emmanuel) “Each Advent every church I know sings, “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” (Hymnal 1982, #56). Immanuel is one of the names for Jesus found in scripture (Isaiah 7:14), it means “God with us.” The season of Advent anticipates God’s time on earth in the person of Jesus. During this time God was with us in a special way. God’s presence with us in human form means that God knows what it is like to be human.”
The Wonderful Season of Advent
The name “Advent” actually comes from the Latin word adventus which means “coming.” It is a reminder of how the Jewish nation waited for the Messiah and how Christians are now waiting for the return of Christ.
Advent which begins this Sunday Nov. 28 is like a breath of fresh air -a new church year, a new set of Gospel readings from Mark, and the anticipation of the birth of Christ.
The Advent season is a time of preparation that directs our hearts and minds to Christ’s second coming at the end of time and also to the anniversary of the Lord’s birth on Christmas. It blends together a penitential spirit, very similar to Lent, a liturgical theme of preparation for the Second and Final Coming of the Lord, called the Parousia, and a joyful theme of getting ready for the Bethlehem event.
The Advent wreath, four candles on a wreath of evergreen, is shaped in a perfect circle to symbolize the eternity of God. The Advent Wreath is beautiful and evocative reminder of the life-giving qualities of light. The evergreens used in the wreath are reminders of ongoing life, even in the face of death.
There are 4 candles, one for each week in Advent, are used with one larger white candle in the middle as the Christ candle. During each Sunday of the Advent season, we focus on one of the four virtues Jesus brings us: Hope, Love, Joy and Peace. Three of the candles are purple. This is the color of penitence and fasting as well as he color of royalty to welcome the Advent of the King.
The Third candle is pink, a color of joy, the joy that Jesus is almost here and fasting is almost order. Gaudete Sunday (from the Latin meaning “rejoice”) which is taken from Philippians 4:4-5, the Entrance Antiphon of the day.
Advent begins in a season of darkness but using the Advent wreath we see light winning over darkness. Lighting candles is a way we can keep time in Church And as the season passes, and another candle is lit each week, light finally wins out over darkness with the turn of the solstice in the stars and the birth of Christ on the ground.
At the center of the wreath is a white candle, which is called the Christ Candle. This candle is lit on Christmas Eve as a reminder that Jesus, the light of the world, has been born and has come to dwell with us.
It is a season of waiting, of rest but also a time to find new beginnings. Since the 900s Advent has been considered the beginning of the Church year. It is antidote for our society’s frantic behavior during the holiday season. There is so much in the world that tells you, you are not enough or you haven’t do enough before Christmas but you have to find out during Advent that you are enough.
The first week of Advent is all about hope. Lamentations 3: 21-24: “Yet this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; “therefore I will wait for him.” (NIV).
The altar changes during Advent to represent the new season, particularly in the use of color. Today, many churches have begun to use blue instead of purple, as a means of distinguishing Advent from Lent. Blue also signifies the color of the night sky or the waters of the new creation in Genesis 1. Blue emphasizes the season is also about hope and anticipation of the coming of Christ. Christ is about transformation as the sky changes from dark to light filling our lives with grace.
Donate to Giving Tuesday
Click the button to donate to Giving Tuesday in honor of the Village Harvest on Giving Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2022.
You can also send a check by mail or donate on Sunday in the plate:
St. Peter’s Church P. O. Box 399 Port Royal, Virginia 22535
Village Harvest Anniversary
Village Harvest. concluded our 8th year, Nov. 16~
Psalm 107:37 “And sow fields and plant vineyards, And gather a fruitful harvest.”
The Village Harvest ends its 8th year in November. The October, 2014 newsletter read as follows ” In an effort to make fresh food more available to those in our area in need of food, the ECW is going to head up a new project. Credit goes to Eunice for conceiving the name “Village Harvest.”
St Peter’s provides an opportunity for people in the area to come get fresh produce, meat, and assorted non-perishable items on the third Wednesday of each month. The offerings change from month to month, depending on what’s available at the food bank.
Thanks to the generosity of St Peter’s, not only are we able to provide food, but Catherine has also been able to use her discretionary fund to help these people in other ways.
During the first 11 months of 2022, we have fed 970 people compared to 898 in the previous year during the same period. The amount of food provided is about the same – 13,834 pounds for 2022 and 13,292 for 2021. Pounds per person, however, were higher in 2021 at 14.80 compared with 14.26 in the current year
Over the past 8 years we have distributed 107,822 pounds of food for 9,978 people or 10.8 pounds per person.
Sunday Links for Nov. 13, 2022
Fall in the graveyard
Nov. 13, 11:00am – Holy Eucharist
Nov. 13, Deadline for Thanksgiving gifts to the Episcopal Church Men (ECM)
Nov. 13, United Thankoffering (UTO) ongoing until Nov. 27
Nov. 13, Deadline for signing up for the Bethlehem Walk trip Sunday, Dec. 4 after church. See Catherine
Nov. 29, Giving Tuesday in support of the Village Harvest food ministry
Photos from the Saylor fellowship, Nov. 5, 2022
About 25 gathered from 2 St. Peter’s churches as a fund raiser for the home that is being built in Jamaica for a family member at St. Peter’s. It was a beautiful, warm night with the sky moving to a full moon on Nov. 8
The fellowship included “What’s in the sock game” where people guessed what was in up to 20 socks. (At least 2 identified all!). Andrea Pogue’s Nov. 5 birthday was celebrated. Dinner included multiple sets of chili with bread and a dessert table that included pecan pie, peanut butter pie and cupcakes. The evening shifted into singing with Larry Saylor leading the group from a distributed song book. Well planned! There was time left for roasting marshmallows.
At the Saylors (full size gallery)
Sunday Links for All Saints, Nov. 6, 2022
The River in the fall
Nov. 6, 11:00am – Holy Eucharist, All Saints
All Saints Sunday – A Time of Baptism
- McKenna Long – Jan. 2, 2011
- Alexander Long VI – Nov. 4, 2012
- Owen Long – Aug. 4, 2013
Baptism of Scarlett Joy Long is on Nov. 1, 2015. Congratulations! Baptism is one of the sacraments of the Episcopal Church and is one of the times of the year appointed for baptism.
Here are the 3 Whys of Baptism
All Saints Day
In our Baptismal Covenant we, along with traditional Christians around the globe, profess in the ancient Baptismal Creed the words: “I believe in… the communion of saints, … the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting.” (Book of Common Prayer, page 304)
From its very beginning, the Church understood the Body of Christ to encompass all baptized persons, both the living and the dead. Christ’s kingdom transcends time and space; and not even death can sever the relationship that the faithful have in Christ.
All are united in a mystical communion with Christ by virtue of baptism (1 Corinthians 6:11). The term saint was used by Paul to designate all baptized Christians (Romans 1:7; 2 Corinthians 1:1; Ephesians 1:1), even the unruly ones (1 Corinthians 1:2)!
In the New Testament, all those who believe and were baptized were referred to as saints. The word saint originally meant "holy".
On All Saints Day, we make celebrate this idea in the here and now by recognizing and celebrating our relationship, not only with those around us today, but also with all those who have gone before us in all times and place. They are connected in one communion.
All Saints is also a time for welcoming new members. Traditionally baptisms are held in the Episcopal Church at the Feast of the Baptism of our Lord, Easter, Pentecost, and All Saints.
It wasn’t until round about the third century that the church began using the word saint to refer to those who had been martyred for the faith
The early Church especially honored martyrs, those who had died for their faith. Praying for the dead is actually borrowed from Judaism, as recorded in 2 Maccabees 12:41-45 of the Apocrypha.
Local churches kept a record of their own martyrs and each year celebrated their “birthdays,” the dates of death when they were “born” into eternal life.
By the fourth century many parts of the Church had set a day of observance for their martyrs, their confessors (those who had been punished for their faith but did not die), and their virgins, all of those known by name and unknown.
The celebration of All Saints’ Day on November 1 began as a feast day commemorating all martyrs, confessors and virgin, including those whose names were not known. In the seventh century, Pope Boniface IV officially established All Saints’ Day in order to honor all the saints at one time.
It was originally celebrated on the first Sunday after Pentecost, and the Eastern Church still observes this date. In the eighth century, Pope Gregory III moved it to November 1.
The confusing aspect of saints is that we have many saints that we honor on specific days. However, there are many unknown or unsung Saints, who may have been forgotten. On All Saints’ Day, we celebrate these Holy Ones of the Lord, and ask for their prayers for us.
Since they are endowed with holiness, saints are close to God, and may perform miracles on earth. Roman Catholics, and some other Christians, honor saints and ask them for guidance in daily life.
Not only is All Saints an occasion on which we might celebrate this communion of saints with prayer, it is also a reminder of God’s desire to sanctify the lives of all God’s people. Too often Christians have used the term saint to describe only those of extraordinary sanctity who have been officially recognized (canonized) by the Church.
But the life of each Christian is to radiate the love of God given to us in Christ so that all the world might know that this love transforms lives.
Bulletin, Pentecost 21, Oct. 30, 2022
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