Advent – Putting on the armor of light

With the arrival of December 1^st, we are now into the first week of Advent.  It is a time of busy-ness all around us.  Families gathering, shopping to do, decorating, an increase in social obligations, work parties, community parties, school parties – is this true for you as well?  It is also a time of increasing darkness as we move toward the shortest days of the year just before Christmas breaks in with all of its light and life. 

With all this busy-ness, and all of this activity, we may feel bombarded with “to do” lists, and also with the sense that there is a disconnect between the spirituality of Advent and the reality of the “holiday season.”

A helpful balm in the midst of this busy time is our Collect for the first Sunday of Advent.  Some of you might have missed hearing the Collect if you were away for the Sunday just after Thanksgiving, but it is perhaps my favorite Collect of the entire church year:

Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

We pray that in this time of Advent that we would “cast away the works of darkness,” that, even in this busy time, with all the temptations to be “of the world,” we know that God is giving us grace.  In this time, we know that God is empowering us to find time to reflect, to ponder as Mary did, to seek to go deep, and also to remember God in the midst of the blitz of the holiday shopping season.

We pray that we would put on “the armor of light,” which is a fascinating image, one in which we use our own deep hope and joy to create a physical protection around ourselves.  However, this protection is not merely defensive, rather, like light itself, it fills the world with the light of Christ.  If you have read Harry Potter, this is something like (in my thinking) the notion of a patronus, which is a figure of light and life which emerges from our own positive thoughts of joy and hope.  This patronus or armor of light casts away the works of darkness, and all the things of this world which can steal away our hope and joy and love.

And so, I pray that even in the midst of the increasing darkness of these days, we all might find new ways to “put on an armor of light,” or (if you like) to push out our own patronuses into the world, projecting light, and hope and joy and peace and love into a world that is in such desperate need of them.  As we walk the ways of Advent, we prepare for the coming of the one true light, and we do not walk alone, for our armor is not merely protection for us, but is projected outward, and together we will fill even the darkest places with the light that God has provided.

Peter+