Second Sunday after Christmas

Sermon - Rev Jack Arnold

Church of the Faithful Centurion - Descanso, California

Today’s sermon ties together the propers, that is to say the prayer and readings for this week.  Due to calendar considerations, we do not oft get to celebrate the Second Sunday after Christmas as there are only 12 days in Christmastide, but this is one of those years!

If you enjoy this,
the entire AOC Sunday Report is RIGHT HERE!

Consider these words from the Collect, “…God, who hast poured upon us the new light of thine incarnate Word; Grant that the same light enkindled in our hearts may shine forth in our lives…”

First, note God has given us the New Light of Jesus Christ in the world and in our lives as the Word Incarnate, or the Word in the Flesh.  We did not earn it He gave it to us!  Gave, as in we did nothing to deserve it. It is a gift of God’s wonderful Grace!  However once we have it, that is if we really have it and not just say we have it, we must do something with the Word, hence the second part that His Word might shine in our lives.  We ask the light of the Word will take root in our hearts and shine forth as action in our lives.  That is to say that our lives will act as a window to the Word, not a closed door. We want the window to show our lives have been renewed by Christ’s presence to encourage others to follow Him as well. In order for that to be so, we have to act upon the Scriptures and Christ’s teachings, and do our very best, and not just say it, to follow Him.

The reading used for the Epistle is not an Epistle as such, but a portion of the Book of Isaiah, one of the Old Testament books filled with New Testament ideas and thoughts.  Without the freedom that Jesus brings us, we are prisoners of the darkest prison, our heart separated from God.  If we embrace His Gift of freedom, we are free, truly free, with eternal life starting as soon as we accept it.   In the reading, Isaiah says what we should all be saying, The Lord has selected us to pass on His Good Tidings to all, to tell the world the Good News of the Lord Jesus!  To comfort those in need, to bring happiness where there is heaviness, to talk of the Glory of God!  Good News indeed! Jesus will be proclaiming liberty to us, the former captives of the sin that would bring us to a final death. Instead of death, He proclaims light and light to all the hearts who accept Him. This is absolutely terrific news indeed!

On the surface, in the Gospel, Matthew is just relating the historical fact of Joseph being told to go back into Israel with Mary and Jesus, that all was safe for the time being.  Yet, there is more.  The verses also recall the threat to Jesus’ life from Herod and sends Joseph and his family to take up residence in Nazareth in fulfillment of the prophecy that the King of Kings would be called a Nazarene.

So what of us?  How do we fit in to all this?

We are to spread the light unto the world, to be beacons, directing the people of the World to follow Christ and not the World. We are the lamp bearers, the torch bearers, bringing the light of Scripture unto the darkest places. We are like the light of Galadriel, which was given to Frodo in Lord of the Rings, that it might be a light “unto the darkest places.” Indeed this world is dark, a lot like the world of Mordor, also from Lord of the Rings. Even when we despair and all seems hopeless, with Christ and the Holy Ghost in our hearts, we can ride out amidst the darkness of the world and triumph over what seems like overwhelming odds, when the evil folk outnumber the good folk. With this rallying to our King, we can defeat anything that evil throws at us. We know in the end our side wins for all eternity. We have the Holy Spirit to comfort and guide us in difficult times and the wonderful guide of Scripture to guide us.

So too shall Scripture be a light for us and others in the darkest times and places on this planet. Christ is the great guiding star, like the North Star for sailors of old to navigate by. So too shall we navigate by Christ as our great guiding star. If we hold the light up, we shall never fall and stumble. But if we do not hold it up, we will fall and stumble. So the obvious solution to our problems when we are troubled is to turn back and hold up the light to light our way.

That is to say, to return to the Scriptures and His Word and consult Him for guidance and not look for true guidance from the heart of man. Christ will show us the way.  But, for us to find The Way, we must not only look for it, but listen when He delivers and see when He points.  For that to happen, we must let His Word take root in our hearts, and to fully take root, we must act upon the Scriptures daily.

In order to have it take root, we must be opened to His Word and not shut and deaf to Him.   He cannot come in if we will not let him, so we must open our hearts and minds to Him.  That is the mission of the Holy Ghost, to enter into our hearts to give us understanding, to make our hearts receptive to His Will, to inspire us to do His Will in a manner which will be effective.  Our Lord will free us from ourselves if we open the door, so we must be willing and ready to accept Him. We have to be ready, willing and able to receive Him and to spread His Word, to have a true solid, Christian faith.

In order to be of help to others who would come to Christ, we must walk the walk besides talking the talk; we must not be as hypocrites, saying one thing but doing another. We do not want to be like the Pharisees of old, with their lavish prayers and gestures in the public. But we must be like the publican who would not so much as lift His eyes up onto the heavens. We must have a humble, hearty and contrite spirit, to spread the Word of the Lord to those who need to hear it most.

The time has come to show the light unto the world. The time has come to choose God or Satan. The choice is like those in the Lord of the Rings[1]. Do we choose the Light, like the Men of the West and Aragorn of Gondor, or do we choose the forces of Darkness, of Mordor and their allies? Who shall we choose? Our actions shall show our hearts. “For where your heart is, there shall your treasure be also.”

Heaven is at the end of an uphill trail.  The easy downhill trail does not lead to the summit.

The time is now, not tomorrow.  The time has come, indeed.  How will you ACT?

It is by our actions we are known.

Be of God - Live of God - Act of God

---

[1] No so surprising a comparison as you might think if you knew little of literature. The great fantasy and children’s writers, John Ronald Reuel (JRR) Tolkien, Clive Stapleton (CS) Lewis and Gilbert Keith (GK) Chesterton were all friends and more importantly, devoted well educated Christians.   While they are famous for their apparently secular fantasy writings, there is a Christian theme woven through each of their works.

Saint John, Apostle and Evangelist

If you enjoy this, the entire
AOC Sunday Report  is
RIGHT HERE!

Sermon - Rev Jack Arnold

Church of the Faithful Centurion - Descanso, California

Today’s sermon brought the Collect, Epistle and Gospel together and is partly contained in the forewords above.

Saint John, Apostle and Evangelist.

[December 27.]

The Collect.

M

ERCIFUL Lord, we beseech thee to cast thy bright beams of light upon thy Church, that it, being illumined by the doctrine of thy blessed Apostle and Evangelist Saint John, may so walk in the light of thy truth, that it may at length attain to life everlasting; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Christmas Collect is found on Page 96:

The Nativity of our Lord, or the Birthday of Christ,

commonly called Christmas Day.

[December 25.]

The Collect.

A

LMIGHTY God, who hast given us thy only-begotten Son to take our nature upon him, and as at this time to be born of a pure virgin; Grant that we being regenerate, and made thy children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by thy Holy Spirit; through the same our Lord Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the same Spirit ever, one God, world without end.  Amen.

¶ This Collect is to be said daily throughout the Octave.

As is oft the case, today’s propers all tie together to reinforce a point and build our understanding of what God wants and expects from each of us.  Consider these words from the Collect where we ask God to “…cast thy bright beams of light upon thy Church, that it, being illumined by the doctrine of thy blessed Apostle and Evangelist Saint John, may so walk in the light of thy truth, that it may at length attain to life everlasting…”  As is almost always the case, we are asking God to help us by lighting up our lives and that of the Church that we might hear and understand the words left by Saint John so to grow closer to what God wants us to be here and our eternal life.  There is a great reason for this.  John was the longest lived of the disciples, he lived probably to about age 90!  The Book of John is the single most theologically filled books of the Bible.  John explains so much of what we need to know.

In his First General Epistle John tells us he is passing on what he has seen and heard from Jesus with his own eyes and ears.  It is not a second hand account, it is not what someone told him.  He saw it, he saw it all.  He wants us to know what happened with Jesus, how He rose from the dead as a very practical demonstration of our life eternal with Him.   John also wants us to know that if we claim fellowship with Jesus, then we need to live fellowship with Jesus.  We need to walk in Jesus’ shadow, which itself is light.  For in him there is no variableness of turning.  If we believe on Him, we will do our pitiful best to follow Him and He will account us as perfect at our accounting.  Anyone who thinks they can “work” their way into Heaven is deceiving themselves.  Our good works are only a demonstration of our faith; they are not our way into heaven, rather the natural consequence of our believing on Him.  If you truly believe on our Lord and in our God, you will be unable not to do what you are supposed to do.  Odd, that.

God will give us the guidance we need to do His Work on Earth. We have to do our part and accept and act upon that guidance. Without the acceptance and letting the Holy Ghost in, we cannot do His Work here. So we have to train our hearts souls and minds to believe on Him and listen and act upon His Guidance.

When we look at the Gospel, we see John making an excellent point; words mean something, thus in our study of the Word, the translation is important.  If we are going to trust in the written word, we need to make certain it is indeed The Word.  This could lead us to an entire discussion of the various translations of the Bible and why it is so important to use a translation based on the Received Text and why we use the King James or Authorized Version.  Luckily, today is not the day for that! 

John, who oft refers to himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved, asks who will betray Jesus?  Jesus does not answer.  Peter asks what shall become of the traitor? Jesus answered, I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?.  That is where the listening stopped.  He went on to say, Follow thou me.  No one noticed that.  The word then spread the traitor, Judas Iscariot, would not die but live until Jesus returned to earth.   Of course, as John pointed out, He did not say that.  What Jesus in effect said was, It is none of your business what happens to Judas, your job is to follow Me!  Likewise, we need to keep this in mind, our job is not to worry about what others do or do not do, our job is to do what we are supposed to do.  Hard to do, that. But it is what we are supposed to do nether the less. focus on what we are supposed to do and not what others are supposed to do.

This section of John’s Gospel closes with an interesting line that makes you wish he had been a bit more prolific in his writings, And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.   Still considering the difficulty in getting words into print in those days, we are grateful for what we have. What we do have is sufficient for our knowledge as we journey on the narrow, winding uphill trail towards heaven.

The entire New Testament is a consistent call to belief in our Lord and action on that belief.  Here at Christmastide, at this very joyous time we need to remember Jesus came into this world with the certain knowledge of precisely how He would leave, yet He came anyway that we might have life eternal.

Heaven is at the end of an uphill trail.  The easy downhill trail does not lead to the summit.

The time is now, not tomorrow.  The time has come, indeed.  How will you ACT?

It is by our actions we are known.

Be of God - Live of God - Act of God

Christmas Day

If you enjoy this the entire AOC Christmas Report is RIGHT HERE!

Sermon - Rev Hap Arnold

Church of the Faithful Centurion - Descanso, California

Today’s sermon is the message of Christmas.  “He came unto His own and they received Him not.” Christ came unto His own, the people he created, to show them the Word which He is the living embodiment of, the Living and True Scripture. They received Neither the written Word that his Apostles wrote, nor the spoken Word from His Mouth that He spake unto them. “But as many as received Him, to them he gave the power to become the sons of God.” He has adopted us unto his family, through His Word, which he has spoken unto us, that we may fulfill it and live in harmony with others in this word.

“And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.” This speaks to the living incarnate nature of the Word, (Christ) who dwelt among us 2,000 years ago, that He might understand our nature more, so that He could teach us with more understanding. If He lived in our conditions, it would be easier for Him to relate to us when He taught and spake the Word of His Father.   “And we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” In That Word, He spake both full of grace and of truth as John talked about in the last Gospel. Through His grace and truth that we accept, only can we do things for His Glory. Without the Word, we cannot do anything for Him, as imperfect creatures, now having been accounted and spoken for by Christ. With the Word, we are empowered to do things for Him. The birth of Christ would foreshadow his death, which would bring about the ultimate freedom, that from sin and death.

That is such an important point. 16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)  Not just that God, the Almighty Creator of Heaven and Earth, would send His only begotten Son, but that the Son came knowing not only that He, King of Kings, would be born in a manger, live a life of relative poverty, but that He would die a horrible horrible death that we might have eternal life.  He came to this miserable planet for us, to give us life eternal!  He knew when He came here precisely how He would leave, yet He came anyway.  Think of that on this Christmas Day!

Today we recall the birth of our Lord and Savior, the only means by which we, imperfect creatures with free will, might be accounted as perfect before God when our day of judgment comes.  Born, not in a palace, but in a stable, He is all that we have been promised.  Taking the substance of Man, all Man and all God, He knows our temptations, He knows our failures, He knows our failings, He knows our sorrow; He also knows our happiness, our small triumphs, our hopes and our dreams.  He is the only one in this world who will never fail us in the slightest.  He gives us His example to follow.  If we will but follow Him, we will draw closer to God.  He made the world, He knows the world.  He defeated the Prince of this World, thus with His Help, so will we.  This is a day of joy, foreshadowing a day of sorrow, leading to the greatest joy of all.

Let us joyfully receive Him into our hearts and homes, that we might do what He asks and spread the Joy of His Arrival on Earth that we might prepare for His Second Coming. If we do this and what he asks, which is a common theme that stays the same throughout the Christian Year, we shall be Blessed with good things, as a result of doing what He asks. On the Christmas Day, let us Rejoice in His Coming and begin our preparations for His Second Coming

Let this be a blessed and happy Christmas.  He has come to us!

Be of God - Live of God - Act of God

Fourth Sunday in Advent

If you enjoy this, the entire AOC Sunday Report is RIGHT HERE!

Sermon - Rev Jack Arnold

Church of the Faithful Centurion - Descanso, California

Today’s sermon brought the Collect, Epistle and Gospel together and is partly contained in the forewords above.

The Fourth Sunday in Advent

The Collect.

O

 LORD, raise up, we pray thee, thy power, and come among us, and with great might succour us; that whereas, through our sins and wickedness, we are sore let and hindered in running the race that is set before us, thy bountiful grace and mercy may speedily help and deliver us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with thee and the Holy Ghost, be honour and glory, world without end.  Amen.

The Collect for the First Sunday in Advent is on Page 90:

The First Sunday in Advent

The Collect.

A

LMIGHTY 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.

¶ This Collect is to be repeated every day, after the other Collects in Advent, until Christmas Day.

As is oft the case, today’s propers all tie together to reinforce a point and build our understanding of what God wants and expects from each of us.  The Collect asks for God’s help for us to accept His Help and do it His Way.  That is a thought that permeates or at least should permeate our entire lives.  It is oft supposed Christians are dour souls, with no sense of happiness or humor.  Perhaps this thought comes from those who have heard what the Bible says, filtered through some odd prism, but have never actually read it. That may have been the way the Puritians thought, but then again, the Puritians were not holding to the consistent truth of the Bible. After all God commands us to make a “joyful” noise unto the Lord! Not, a dour, grumbling and solemn noise, but an exceedingly JOYFUL noise unto the Lord! There is nothing in the Bible that says you cannot have fun whilst worshipping our Lord, in fact that is the preferred way to worship Him! In fact, if we enjoy worshipping the Lord, then we are most apt to do more of our best to follow Him, if we are enjoying ourselves whilst doing so!

After all, the one said to be the most dour of all, Paul, tells us to be happy.  Not just happy, but to REJOICE.  REJOICE in the Lord ALWAYS and AGAIN I say REJOICE!  How much more fun can you have?  We are also to be moderate in everything we do, no excesses, an even keel.  Work hard, but maintain a time and space for our family, honor our country, and above all honor God.  He goes on to tell us if we think we need something, simply ask God for it!  Speaking of God, John recounts John the Baptist’s role in preparing the way for Jesus.  The Pharisees just had trouble with the simplicity of his message.  They were looking for something more complex, less straightforward, something more like themselves. 

They were not willing to accept the change in the status quo that the New Testament would break their role in finding ways around the commandments Jesus gave, as there is no way around the two commandments, namely of loving God with all our heart, soul and mind, and loving our neighbors as ourselves! Without those, we are just pitiful, weak, sinful beings! But, if we embrace those commandments, we start to shed our old man image, and put on a newer, shinier and better image. We then become, Man 2.0, quite the upgrade from the first version!

The Pharisees were a case of no play, all work and led a rather unbalanced life. We are told to balance ourselves with play besides work, to make us into a happier people who will rejoice in God’s commandments and will do His Work without complaint.  We will be happier in the end if we do it His Way instead of our way as we are so want to do, which is in our nature. The whole of Scriptures is about us fighting against our nature so we will be closer to what God intended us to be; a happy and holy people, living together in harmony. If the world would do what God asked, our lives would be so much better, we would all be living together in happiness. Peace on earth will not be possible until the world accepts Him into their hearts. This is the perfect season for those who haven’t yet, to accept Him, to acknowledge Him at His first true appearance amongst us, at His Birth. There is always time to accept Him, but do not wait until it is too late to do so! People can accept Him any at any time, but sooner rather than later is preferable.

Jesus also tells us to put our trust in the Lord, then not to worry.  He knows how counterproductive, indeed how destructive worry can be in our lives.  We know it not only cannot, but will not do good, we know it will only hurt our cause; yet we do it.  Is this not a proof positive of how much we need His Help?  How hard is it to Trust in God and Dread Naught?  Very!  Yet to make progress this we must do. Even though it is very hard to trust somebody you can’t see physically, you must trust your spiritual sense and follow Him anyway!  Knowing you will see Him physically one day, is one of our great rewards. This greatly eases at least my worries and it should ease yours as well. There is always going to be a great evil in this day and age and we do not need to add to our existing problems by worrying. Worrying solves nothing and can in fact create more problems for you. It is an activity that we need to do our best to stop doing.

The world is extremely complex; it is full of problems, temptations and difficulties.  It is full of obstacles for us, yet all Christianity offers is a few simple solutions.  We often hear there are no simple answers to complex questions.  Actually, that is not true.  There are simple answers to complex problems, they are the only ones which can and will work.  The problem is they are not the answers people want.  Most people do not want to know what they are supposed to do, lest they have to do it.  They want to be told what they want to do is at least okay, even though it is clearly not okay. But we need to know what we are doing is the actual “Okay.” thing, and not what Joe on the corner claims is Okay. To do that, we have to read the Scriptures and listen to what God says is Okay, because He really does know the best in this matter for us. 

Once again, when you think about being a Christian, think a bit about these quotes from GK Chesterton:

·      Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.

·      The word good has many meanings. For example, if a man were to shoot his grandmother at a range of five hundred yards, I should call him a good shot, but not necessarily a good man. 

·      The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because generally they are the same people. 

·      Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions. 

·      A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.

 G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936)

We are called to a new and different life, we ask the Lord to both lead us and follow us, to keep us always.  Our goal is to do the Lord’s will, not to avoid 613 laws.  To do what is right and be humble.

Heaven is at the end of an uphill trail.  The easy downhill trail does not lead to the summit.

The time is now, not tomorrow.  The time has come, indeed.  How will you ACT?

It is by our actions we are known.

Be of God - Live of God - Act of God

Third Sunday in Advent

If you enjoy this, the entire AOC Sunday Report is RIGHT HERE!

Today’s sermon brought the Collect, Epistle and Gospel together and is partly contained in the forewords above.

The Third Sunday in Advent

The Collect.

O

 LORD Jesus Christ, who at thy first coming didst send thy messenger to prepare thy way before thee; Grant that the ministers and stewards of thy mysteries may likewise so prepare and make ready thy way, by turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, that at thy second coming to judge the world we may be found an acceptable people in thy sight, who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Spirit ever, one God, world without end. Amen.

The First Sunday in Advent

The Collect.

A

LMIGHTY 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.

¶ This Collect is to be repeated every day, after the other Collects in Advent, until Christmas Day.

In the Collect for the Third Sunday in Advent, we are referred to as the ministers and stewards (caretakers) of the mysteries of God: the Scriptures and His Word. We ask for help in getting the hearts of the disobedient, by the wisdom of the just, to turn and look to the Kingdom of God for answers and not this world.  In view of the recent events, how timely can this prayer be?  When we look to the world for solutions, we find the solutions of this world.  This world, ruled by the Prince of this world, the Prince of Air, the devil himself!  But, what will people think when we reject worldly solutions to worldly problems.  There is an answer for that, conveniently following the Collect.

In the Epistle, Paul says that we must not fear of what others would think of us, but rather be concerned about what God would think of what we are doing and what direction He wants us to go in. Rather than fear man, we must switch to fearing God, and doing what He wants. Then perhaps maybe, some in this world will see what we are doing for Him and come to know Him and join Him. We will never get anywhere if we follow the ways of this world. As in John 1:11-13 “He came unto His own and His Own received him not.  But as many as received Him, to them he gave the power to become the Sons of God, even to them that believe on His name.  Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God.” 

If we are born of God, then it is He to whom we must return and not man. As the verse from John points out, even Jesus came to us and we refused him, so how can we expect any better treatment from man, than of God Himself, who came down for us?  But the next part of the verse, tells us what we will get if we join with him. He gave us the power to become the Sons of God, as we are His adopted children. He is giving us our eternal inheritance, if we will but follow Him. We are going to get an absolutely wonderful reward, if we do our very best to follow Him. The treatment we receive in this world will pale in comparison to the treatment God will give us in the next world if we but do our very best to follow Him. He has given us the power to become the Sons of God, we are God’s adopted children. This is a power greater than any in this world not of God’s Hands. This is a power which cannot be taken away from us, as we are tightly in God’s Hand. The enemy cannot pluck us out of God’s grasp, once we have willingly joined ourselves to God through the help of the Holy Ghost. We need the unifying spirit of the Holy Ghost to help us understand the concepts of Scripture and not only to understand them, but to follow them. With the help of the Holy Ghost, we can understand what we are to do and more than that, we will be able to apply the concepts we learn from Scripture in our every day lives.

In the Gospel, Christ asks the crowd of what they expected to see?  Some great big flashy sign He was going to overthrow the Romans and unite the Jews to conquer the world?  No, He did not come to do this, for that would be only a temporary and in fact temporal thing to rule the world.  He came for far more than that; to prepare our hearts for eternity and change us from unjust to just creatures, worthy of God’s creation and His Hands. He came to mould and to shape us from being roughly made to something very valuable. He came to transform us from death to being truly alive in all of the senses of the word. 

To be worthy of the charge and care of His mysteries, we must willing to listen to Him and do whatever we need to do to line ourselves up with what He wants for us, not what we want for ourselves.  We must think of others, instead of thinking of ourselves all the time.  I must confess that I am guilty of this, but I am always working on trying to reverse this, as we must, in order to walk with Him. We must be willing to never give up and persevere; if we follow this, we will keep getting better and better all the time. 

Life is a continual process of learning in every aspect of our lives, not least of these aspects is our spiritual growth and development.  The Japanese have a word for this, introduced into their industry by the American engineer W. Edwards Deming, Kaizen (改善) that is to say continuous improvement.  Never perfect, but always endeavoring to improve.  Day by day. Our goal is to make the next day better than the last. This is how we must continually develop as Christians.

To care for the mysteries of God properly, we must keep learning in our spiritual lives and if we do this, we will keep growing more and more every day.  Reading the Scriptures is one way to further our spiritual development, as well as helping others without thought for ourselves.  We must keep doing a combination of these and similar things, if we expect to be able to facilitate our spiritual growth and change the minds of the disobedient and the unjust. We have to undergo our spiritual rebirth before we can help to transform others and to serve others. We need to have the mental state that only the Holy Ghost can give us, to do this. We must keep trying our best to improve and learn from the Scriptures and the Holy Spirit and to trust in God and dread naught.

As He came to change us for the better, Paul and the Collect remind us to do the same for the others.  We have to keep trying to help our friends and family and to do our best to do so, while shining the light of Christ as His ambassadors. We know not what seeds we plant when we perform such actions and in a future time they may bear fruit. We must not try and rush the work of the Holy Spirit, who works on God’s time and not that of our own time. All good things will happen in due course. If we do our part by planting the seed, the Holy Ghost will nurture and develop this seed to bear fruit. We must put our hearts and minds together and think about what God wants us to do in the end rather than what we want to do. Put God first and all will be well, is what can be taken from today’s collects and lessons, ultimately.  We must be willing do to this, then we can be properly caring for the mysteries of God.

Heaven is at the end of an uphill trail.  The easy downhill trail does not lead to the summit.

The time is now, not tomorrow.  The time has come, indeed.  How will you ACT?

It is by our actions we are known.

Be of God - Live of God - Act of God

Second Sunday in Advent

Sermon - Rev Jack Arnold

Church of the Faithful Centurion - Descanso, California

Today’s sermon brought the Collect, Epistle and Gospel together and is partly contained in the forewords above.

If you enjoy this, the entire
AOC Sunday Report is
RIGHT HERE!

The Second Sunday in Advent

The Collect.

B

LESSED Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning; Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace, and ever hold fast, the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

The First Sunday in Advent

The Collect.

A

LMIGHTY 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.

¶ This Collect is to be repeated every day, after the other Collects in Advent, until Christmas Day.

The Collect and the Epistle and the Gospel all tell us we are to learn from Scripture and to place our hope and trust in God, not man. We are to use Scripture for our learning so we might become wiser through the Holy Spirit, whose guidance as we read and study Scripture will allow us to come to a full understanding of the meaning it should have in our daily lives.  If we try to live our lives or write our sermons without that guidance, we will be for naught. We have to understand what we are preaching; to live what we are preaching, in order for our faith to have any meaning. If we do not have understanding nor do we act upon our preaching, how can we ask others to follow God, when we ourselves are not?  We must strive to avoid hypocrisy, to live a geniune live following His commandments He has set for us and to be a beacon to guide others to Him. We are not an icon or image of Him, but merely pathfinders, and once we have found the path, we guide others to Him. We do not posess any special powers as ministers of the Lord, except as we have the Holy Ghost within us, directing us. He works not only in Ministers, but in each and every member of the church. 

He gives each of us in His church special talents, so members of the church may use these talents in conjunction with one another to bring people to Christ. For the Church is a team, each and everyone in it, the clergy and the lay people all having the common goals of spreading the Gospel to those who are in need of it and tending to those who need help. This is all done with reading and applying the precepts of Scripture with the help of the Holy Ghost.

We must act upon the words of Scripture and the sermons we hear, so our faith will manifest itself to all of those who are watching us.  We will make mistakes and sin, as we are imperfect beings; if we admit our wrongdoings to God, and come back to Him, all shall be forgiven and we shall have another fresh slate, on which to start anew. 

In the Epistle, Paul tells us Scripture was written that we might have hope, even in times of darkness.  Times like these with unbelievers in high places doing their best to defile and ridicule our faith can try our souls.  We must treat others as Christ taught us, with respect and humility, no matter our personal feelings/opinion on them and how they conduct their lives. If we are nice to them, we may plant a seed in their lives for the better, causing perhaps a change for the better in them. We do not know what impact our actions may have in the future; we can only hope they may influence an individual for the better. That is also why we need to be extremely careful in how our actions influence others. We want to be a positive influence, rather than a negative one.

This is where applying the love thy neighbor as thyself concept plays a big part. For if we follow Christ’s Summary of the Law, then our actions are more likely to cause a positive impact on others around us, rather than if we follow ourselves instead of the Holy Ghost, wherein we are more likely to cause a negative impact to others around us.

Turning to the Gospel, Saint Luke describes the signs of the Second Coming and how we are to prepare for it.  We are not to be caught unaware of the signs; if we read the signs, then we shall be prepared to meet our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.  This means we have to be active in our faith, and not brain and faith dead like so many around us today. We have to be spritually aware of our spiritual surroundings, much as a good and safe driver/motorcyclist must be aware of the cars around him and possible hazards in the road at all times.

We have to use the tools given to us by God; Scripture, our faith and our friends in the faith to combat the evils of this world.  We must do our best to make this world the best place we can.  If we study, digest and use Scripture in faith, we will have hope in these times of darkness; we will go forth and spread Good News, which will give us satisfaction and hope for people, therefore renewing our spirit and vigor and the knowledge that in the end we will triumph, will fill our hungry spirits. It will renew our sense of purpose and redirect our focus outward instead of inward.

Our hungry spirits will be satisified by God’s Goodness and His Word and His Love, of which He has infinite capacity, so nobody is stealing anybody else’s share, as God has more than plenty to go around for all of us!  In fact, the more of God’s Love you take, the more there is for others!  So we must concentrate then on sharing the Gospel and God’s love, so others might finally find true happiness, as we find ours, in serving the Lord for the rest of our days. We also have to concentrate on living a genuine Christian life and not a shallow Christian life, and showing the way to Christ, for others to see and follow.

The common theme through the Collect, Epistle and Gospel is that if we have hope and trust in God, we must dread naught, and carry on, empowered through them in our daily lives here on Earth until we are called to our heavenly home.   These are actions we must take not mere thoughts or words, actual actions!

Heaven is at the end of an uphill trail.  The easy downhill trail does not lead to the summit.

The time is now, not tomorrow.  The time has come, indeed.  How will you ACT?

It is by our actions we are known.

Be of God - Live of God - Act of God

Greater love hath no man…

This story would make a fine movie, except it does not fit the mould of the current mood of Hollywood or the powers that be in our country.  It is a story of real me in real situations with a real outcome.  It demonstrates the very finest of America.

Consider if you will the intertwined stories of Thomas J. Hudner and Jesse Leroy Brown whose lives came together before God and parted on 4 December 1950.

Ensign Jesse LeRoy Brown was born in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, on 13 October 1926. Jesse did not know the Navy had no black pilots and never intended to have any.  He was told that, but he paid no attention.  Too young to fight in World War II, he enlisted in the Naval Reserve in 1946 and was appointed a Midshipman, USN, the following year. After attending Navy pre-flight school and flight training, he was designated a Naval Aviator in October 1948, the very first black person[1] to achieve this status. The Naval Reserve pilot system was different than today, like Neil Armstrong, he was a flying Midshipman.  Then Midshipman Brown was assigned to Fighter Squadron 32. He received his commission as Ensign in April 1949. During the Korean War, his squadron operated from CV32 USS Leyte, flying F4U-4 Corsair fighters in support of United Nations forces.

On 4 December 1950, while on a close air support mission near the Chosin Reservoir, flying his 20^th mission as the element lead, Jesse’s Corsair was hit by ground fire over hostile territory and lost power. The only place to land was on the side of a mountain covered by snow. LTJG Thomas Hudner, two years older than Jesse, a Naval Academy graduate and his wingman watched in horror as Jesse’s plane pancaked hard on the mountainside. 

Hudner was briefly buoyed by hope to see Jesse wave from the open canopy. But he wasn’t making any effort to get out of the cockpit. Something was very wrong, and to make matters worse, there was smoke rising from the shattered plane. Hudner made a quick decision to try to rescue Jesse. That meant crash landing his plane next to Jesse on the side of the mountain, which he successfully did.  Can you imagine what it takes to put a six ton machine down onto the side of a mountain at 85 miles per hour? 

Meanwhile, the rest of the squadron circled overhead to watch for Chinese soldiers and radioed for a rescue helicopter.

Hudner found Jesse trapped in the buckled cockpit without his helmet and gloves in below zero temperature and undetermined internal injuries. He covered Jesse’s head with a wool cap and his numb hands with a scarf and used the snow to put out the smoldering fire. But he couldn’t budge Jesse no matter how hard he tried.  He returned to his crashed aircraft and radioed other airborne planes, requesting that the helicopter bring an ax and fire extinguisher. Charlie Ward, a pilot friend of Jesse’s, arrived, making a difficult landing with the helicopter. Charlie had an axe, but that didn’t help free Jesse since the axe just bounced off the metal surface of the plane. Jesse kept getting weaker as the two men desperately tried to free him.  Their efforts were for naught and Jesse slipped slowly away as they worked in frustration. His last words were to his wife, "Tell Daisy that I love her. "

Hudner and Ward wept.

Back on the ship, Jesse’s squadron debated what to do. They didn’t want to leave him for the Chinese so they decided to give Jesse a "warriors funeral. " The next day seven aircraft left the carrier and flew over the crash site. While one plane accelerated in a vertical climb toward heaven, the others dove and released their bombs on the mountainside. The voice of one of the pilots could be heard over the radio reciting the Lord’s Prayer.

On 13 April 1951, President Truman awarded the Medal of Honor to Jesse’s friend and wingman, Thomas Hudner.  Jesse was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal and the Purple Heart.

Think of this, down below he could see his fellow Naval Aviator trapped in the cockpit, with enemy forces likely to close soon.  With no thought for himself, thinking only of his fellow Aviator (notice not black or African, but just a fellow Aviator), Tom Hudner did the only thing he could to help. Charlie Ward came in to pick up his fellow Aviators; not black, not white.

This is the America the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King dreamed of.   It had taken root far before the “I have a dream” speech and with actions, not mere words.  It is an America with Americans, plain and simple.  God’s chosen people showed their face once again at the Chosin Reservoir in this story as in so many others from that terrible place.

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[1] Jesse was an American, not an “African American.”  He had dark skin, but was red, white and blue, through and through.