Sermon by the Rev. Professor David Jasper

There are many reasons why I am both delighted and humbled by this opportunity to speak to you in this church today, Advent Sunday. But as you celebrate so many decades of Christian witness in this place, I rejoice above all that this witness is under the particular protection of your patron saint Aidan, monk of Iona and first bishop and abbot of Lindisfarne. I was born in the North East of England and Lindisfarne and its saints have always had a special place in my heart. We know from his great History of the Church that the scholar Bede felt more warmly of Aidan than any other saint. He was known for his love of prayer, study, peace, purity and humility, as well as for his care for the sick and the poor. Indeed, for Bede, Aidan was so far an example of the Christian life that he was used as a model to reprove the wayward bishops of Bede’s own time, and to recall them to the central purpose and manner of the faith of Christ: a proper model, then, for us.

A model for us as we look back with thanksgiving to these years of Christian service and worship in Clarkston – this place where we are called by God to be – but especially on this Sunday when we also turn our minds forward in preparation for the great feast of the Incarnation, now less than four weeks away, and, in the Church to the so-called last Things – heaven, hell, death and judgement. It is right, and indeed scriptural, that maintain the traditions of those who have gone before us in the faith in worship, doctrine and way of life: that we look back with thanksgiving and in continuity with the church that is of Christ, of Aidan and of the founders of this church building here. But within this tradition the Christian Church is a community which above all looks to the future, its gaze joyously on the salvation granted through Jesus Christ, God incarnate. That balance between past and future is hard to maintain, and as an institution the Church, even the Scottish Episcopal Church, has too often tended to become stuck in the past, and forget that its highest calling is to the future promised to us in Christ. And that balance is to be found, of course, only in the present and the manner of our lives here and now.

And so what of this Sunday, of Advent, with its thunderous themes of heaven and hell, death and judgement –all but the first, perhaps, we would prefer to put to the back of our minds. As we stand on this brink of a new Church’s year, Aidan is with us as an example – of one who lived very much in the presence of God and his Church whose history past and present is gathered into one with us in this sacrament and the great song we call the Sanctus (we shall soon sing it together with the angels and archangels who are with us in this place) – and yet whose life was very much one lived in the present, attentive to the needs of those around him. It is said that his friend King Oswin once gave Aidan a very fine horse – but he at once gave it away to a poor man who needs were greater than his own. That is a perfect example of what the Collect for today asks for - God’s grace that “we may cast away the works of darkness and put on the armour of light, NOW in the time of this mortal life.”

The gospel readings for this Sunday speak of troubled times and the call to act in the face of judgement. One can do no better than return to the first and perhaps the greatest sermon of the Christian Church, but one verse of scripture preached by Our Lord at the very beginning of his earthly ministry: “The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the good news.” (Mark 1:15). Has come near – advenio, Advent – but in the original Greek of St. Mark’s Gospel it is more urgent than that. Now the Kingdom of God is coming through that very door, is upon us. It is a call for us to act now “in the time of this mortal life” – that word ‘repent’, which is so easily misunderstood. It is literally a turning around of the mind towards God, to make up our minds for God.

That, perhaps, is what, above all this church building and this place is for. It is a place in which to make up our minds for God, with all the simplicity and, perhaps, with God’s grace, some of the profundity of Aidan. Here we can to say our prayers, to make our confession (not because our sins are of any interest to anyone, but so that they may be laid aside for we have better things to do with our lives), above all to worship God – for all prayers begins and ends in the praise of God. We come to give thanks that we are joining in what has been done here now for so long by those who have lived their lives, as best they could, in the light of Christ here in Clarkston and Glasgow. But above all, we come to look forward – not only to the coming festival (how easy it is to be waylaid by the glitter and tinsel and forget that they are merely symbols of the real purpose of the feast), but to the great promise of Christ, our judge and saviour, “when he shall come again in his glorious majesty… and we may rise to the life immortal….”

But in the Eucharist, we might say, we already have a taste of that life immortal. In this sacrament truly Christ is with us, touches us – a gift we are barely worthy to receive or even to imagine. And yet it is true, and granted to us by grace here. And with this enormous privilege, this burden which is yet a matter of such rejoicing, now in the time of this mortal life – tomorrow in the office, or Tesco, or school, or wherever we may be – we carry the light of Christ in expectation of the future that is promised.

It is easy to become weighed down by our sense of the troubles of our times, or the decline in church membership, the changes that we find it hard to adjust to – and, in the wider world, those sufferings for which it is difficult to find any reason or explanation – in the Philippines, in Syria (how hard human hearts can be), in the East End of Glasgow, but a mile or two from here. But the gospels, and the words of Jesus make it clear that these things are not new. “When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near.” (Luke 21: 20). But do not let your hearts be faint. For the promise has been given to us, and by the One whose promise cannot fail. The next 90 years will not be easy – any more than the last 90 were easy – such is our human life. But now is a moment when we can stop – an instant of eternity in time – and remember and adjust again – turn our minds around to the greater vision that is even now coming through the door.

It is said that in 651 St Aidan watched the palace of his friend King Oswin at Bamburgh being burnt by his enemies from the neighbouring kingdom of Mercia. Aidan, we are told, prayed for the wind to change and for the palace to be preserved, and his prayer was successful. With such an example before us, how can our hearts fail us? How can we neglect our life of prayer in this church which stands as witness to the past and promise to the future…..

Amen.