Putting on the Armour of light
Three questions:
1. What might today and this Festival of Advent mean to the family of Peto who will in a moment be baptised here at St. George’s?
2. What did Advent mean to the early Christians?
3. What might Advent mean to us?
For Peto and his family, this is certainly the start of a new era – the start of his earthly life’s pilgrimage towards the light of Christ. Advent is a season of light set, for those of us in the Northern hemisphere, against a period of greater seasonal darkness.
Jesus speaks to us saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.”
Today Peto will put on the armour of light.
And to signify this, towards the end of the service, Peto will be given a lighted candle and we will all encourage him by saying:
“Shine as a light in the world to the glory of God the Father.”
What did Advent mean to the early Christians?
For early Christians, there was an expectation of the second Coming of Christ – a sense of needing to be ready. To put aside any feeling of lethargy. And perhaps in a way, Peto’s baptism is a second coming. Certainly one noted theologian (Joseph Fitzmyr) has written “The Baptised Christian has become another Christ.”
What might Advent mean to us?
For us, there is certainly a sense of needing to be ready for the Festival of Christmas, this period of “not yet and waiting.” And if we are honest we are focused at least partly on the secular trappings of the Festival of Christmas.
Let us put aside any feeling of spiritual lethargy
Let us contemplate today’s wonderful Collect which is based on the passage from Romans we just heard – Advent becomes what it was meant to be, a time of preparation for the coming of Christ.
To help prepare us for Advent I will share with you two things.
The First
is an exemplar whose life says something to us. I could talk about French divine, Charles de Foucault, in any sermon, but today is a good day for two reasons:
1. It is the anniversary of his death in 1916
2. He is a good example of someone who cast away the works of darkness and put on the armour of light. And was assassinated on this day just over 100 years ago today. He led a remarkable life and was beatified by the Pope in 20005.
The Second is something you will be doing every day during Advent, I’ll return to that at the end of this sermon.
Who has heard of Charles de Foucault?
He was born in 1858 in France. And he would criticise me for mentioning him today. This is what he said:
"You have only one model: Jesus. Do not look for another"
But in my defence Brother Charles, I suggest that sometimes the gap between us and Jesus is too great. And we need examples of holy living to inspire us to bridge that gap.
de Foucault was born into a wealthy family, orphaned at an early age, found school boring and expelled. He was a swashbuckling sort of fellow, which led to him gravitating naturally towards the army. At 18, he inherited a tidy sum of money. As a Cavalry officer living in the Paris of that time, he found himself indulging in the activities that St. Paul in today’s reading specifically pointed out should be avoided.
Aged 23, he left the army to explore Morocco. Time in the desert and the quality of his research was such that the French Geographical Society awarded him a Gold medal. We know that Jesus and John the Baptist retired to the desert to pray and Charles on his return to France found his faith rekindled. He joined the Cistercian order. And shortly afterwards became ordained. He lived in Palestine, was the handyman for a convent in Nazareth before becoming a hermit and then moved to Algeria.
His approach to evangelism was not by preaching sermons but living alongside others (as Tubby Clayton who I preached abut on Remembrance Sunday stressed – to live the Gospel rather than preaching it) and this he did in the Algerian Sahara, spending a lengthy period with the Tuareg people. He was killed in 1916.
After his death and publication of a biography, he inspired the formation of religious communities, the Little Brothers and the Little Sisters of Jesus. They are small religious communities, often of only three or four people, living alongside others. They are spread across the world, with over 1000 members. There are, for example, one community near here in Portobello and .another on the 13th floor of a block of flats in Hackney.
Time does not permit to say more about Brother Charles or these communities.
I hope you may wish to learn more about them and Brother Charles’s writings.
At this time of Advent, the life of Brother Charles reminds us of how to peel back the overlay of secular life to reveal the true light, while also remaining in the world – surely something we should investigate further.
Now, to conclude, I return to the everyday event in each of your lives.
Yes, you all do it! Every day.
You did it this morning, because if you had not done so, you would not be here.
Or if you hadn’t, you would have received some very odd looks.
You now, this Advent, have the chance to make this everyday event one of ritual significance and an act of prayer at this time of great busyness.
I refer of course to getting dressed.
When you dress, treat it as an act of prayer –putting on the armour of light. Say a short prayer such as “Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.”
And then go forth to love and serve the Lord, just as Charles de Foucault did.