Once more the season of Advent is upon us. For us it is a somber, perhaps even solemn season, For As the world around us prepares for the holiday to come and brings out all the festive trappings, we in the Church are called to a time of thoughtful penitence, and we hear once more the prophecies of the end of earthly joys. We have exchanged the green color of Trinitytide for the purple of repentance. But Advent is also a season of contrast. We look outside and see that nature is preparing for the long frozen sleep of winter. But as nature sleeps our spirits are called to awake. As the days grow shorter and the world grows darker, we are urged to look to the new and glorious rising of the sun. “The night is far gone, the day is at hand”.

           The Epistle reading today reflects the spirit of the season, giving us as it does a simple but urgent prescription: “Owe no one anything, except to love one another...” “Cast off the works of darkness”, all our confused, worldly desires, our petty selfishness’. “Let us conduct ourselves becomingly as in the day, not in revelling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarrelling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires”.

           “Owe no one anything, except to love one another.”- A clear and simple prescription: nothing but love. And surely each of us must respond to this. Wouldn’t it be a wonderful world if we could just love one another? Wars would cease, all people would get along with each other regardless of race, color, or belief. The world would be such a better place if we would only love one another. A great idea certainly,but can we do it? We have enough trouble loving our friends, let alone our enemies, and what about the millions of people out there we know nothing about? And eventhough it is often easier to love someone at a distance than it is close at hand, This ideal of love seems pretty unlikely.

           Nothing but love, says Saint Paul and we must applaud his wonderful idealism. Wouldn’t it be great if we could just ignore all the rigmarole of doctrine and laws and regulations and social structures, and just express our warm feelings of love, unfettered by these restrictions and technicalities? But would we be better off.? The modern world has gone in that direction, in education, in the arts, in social relations and so on. Nothing we are told is so important as to be able to express ourselves and our feelings. But it turns out that the result of all this self expression is not what we had hoped for. You see, the result of self expression depends on the quality of the self being expressed. And all too often the quality we express is not so much love as it is what Saint Paul calls “ the works of darkness and the lusts of the flesh.”

           And when Paul is talking about love, he isn’t talking about the expression of our feelings. ‘Love’ he says, ‘is the fulfilling of the law’ and ‘does no wrong to a neighbour’. He’s not talking about feelings, our likes or dislikes. Our feelings often go against God’s law, and all too often they do wrong to our neighbours. When he talks of love he is talking about willing the good. To love one another means to will the good for one another. It’s not a question of feelings but rather an act of the will. It’s not a matter of self expression but rather of learning and knowing what good is and then disciplining ourselves according to that knowledge.

           Saint Paul was no pie in the sky idealist, and what he urges on us is nothing more nor less than practical Christianity. We can, and to some degree we do, know what the good is. The divine law found in Scripture, God’s Word written, instructs us in the good. And in Jesus Christ, God’s Word made flesh, we have the good demonstrated for us. By the grace of God we can will that good for ourselves and for each other. We can and must discipline our desires and our selves: ‘Make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.’ We often fail, but we can repent. In fact we must repent, for our salvation is near at hand. It is ‘nearer to us now than when we first believed’.

           So when we read in today’s Gospel lesson about Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem and his anger at finding the temple made into a den of thieves, let us think of ourselves. Have we ordered our lives in such a way that we can recognise the good that Christ brings, to know the truth and to live our lives modelled after his? Or are we like the money changers, who perverted the temple to suit their own selfish desires and were cast out by Christ?

           Saint Paul’s message is that ‘it is full time for us to wake from sleep’ and The joy of Christ’s coming, the joy of Advent belongs to those who will the good, which He is, and which He brings. AMEN