A Prayer of Hope and Glory

The Power of God Supports Us

As We Seek to Do His Will

By Nancy VonKlemperer

“. . . cast off the works of darkness and put upon us the armour of light . . .”

is the call to glorious action in the collect for the First Sunday in Advent in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. Episcopalians are to begin the Church Calendar year with this all-encompassing spiritual act.

But how to succeed? The compilers of the prayer were wise enough to know that man cannot succeed on his own. They therefore petition Almighty God for the gift of his grace so that we can not only cast off the works of darkness but also put on the protective armour of light. We need God’s help to stand safe from the world’s soil.

There is urgency about this Advent prayer. We are to act now; now in the time of “this mortal life,” which has an appointed “last day.” It will be terminated when Jesus returns to earth “in his glorious majesty.”

Jesus’s “glorious majesty” will be more glorious than any victory celebration that ever took place on earth. It is beyond the capacity of man’s mind to picture.

In contrast, the purpose of His return strikes a somber note. It is to “judge the quick and the dead.” In doing so He draws a divine boundary line between mortal and immortal life.

The prospect of judgment is fearsome, but hope shines through. We can hope because God has bestowed on us the privilege of petitioning Him for help.

We may hope to spend our immortal life with God. We are not destined, as in other religions, merely to become part of a vast impersonal state of being, or possibly to return as a transmigrated soul. Our glorious and hoped-for destination is a life in the presence of the living God, who, to gather with Jesus and the Holy Ghost, “lives and reigns now and ever.”