The Weekly Perspective
by TJ Draper, Deacon
Our church year begins today as we usher in the season of Advent. How fitting, now as we turn our attention to that expectant and watchful season, that we do so here in the U.S. on the heels of our season of Thanksgiving. While Thanksgiving is not a church calendar holiday, it is a good and right celebration when we gather with friends and family to give thanks for all our Lord has done for us. And while we are, of course, thankful for all things, especially during Advent we remember and are thankful for the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. He took on flesh and blood for us, His people. As we enter Advent, the Book of Common Prayer has these words for us to use in our own prayers:
ALMIGHTY God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy 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 quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, now and ever. Amen.
Recall the words of Jesus from John 8:12, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.” And we now walk in the light because of the incarnation of the light of the world.