St. Augustine of Canterbury Anglican Church
6110 Fulton Road T6A 3T3 Edmonton, AB, Canada

"As you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ." The word apocalypse in its popular usage conjures up the stuff of action movies and epic works of fict...ion. War, pestilence, famine, disaster, destruction, all rolled into one. The end of the world! However, apocalypse has, in fact, a much more specific and circumscribed meaning: the revealing. It has been said that Covid and its collateral effects have been a revealing of cracks in the foundations of our edifices which were always there, but which we had not yet seen until the added stresses came to bear. It has ramped up the urgency. It has shone a spotlight. It has shortened the runway. Choose your metaphor. This revealing is scary stuff. It is hard to watch the ramifications of wealth disparity brought into sharp relief. It is difficult to be so vividly confronted with the realities of systemic racism. It is sad to see the implications of prevailing political ideologies in such a direct fashion. It hurts to be made to recognize the gaps in our social fabric. But a revealing can also be a gift. Being shown the rot in the structures can provide an opportunity to do something about it before the whole thing falls in on itself; or at least to get out before it does and have a chance to start again. The revealing we are told we are waiting for in the Corinthians text for this first Sunday of Advent is the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. Not only does this mean that Jesus is coming to show us who and what and where he is today, but it also tells us that Jesus is the one who is doing the revealing of everything else; the unmasking, the uncovering of all those difficult things named above. For that reason, it is a revelation offered to us in great love. It might not be easy to see, but it comes with an invitation rather than a condemnation. For that reason we can open our eyes and look at it not only in fear but in hope. Even so, come Lord Jesus.

Thanks for sharing Jim