This morning we hear the prophet Isaiah complaining to God that when his people were ignorant of God’s power . . . the Lord God Almighty did astonishing things:  He passed over Egypt and liberated the tribes of Israel; . . . He parted the Red Sea so that the tribes of Israel could escape the irate Egyptians; . . . He appeared to them on Mount Sinai with terrible glory to give them the Ten Commandments to live by, . . .

Thou didst terrible things, which we looked not for [says the prophet Isaiah]; thou camest down [and] the mountains quaked at thy presence.

“But now,” grumbles the prophet Isaiah; “but now, when we beg for your assistance, . . . you do nothing, . . . so that foreigners, who regard your Commandments with contempt; . . . so that foreigners believe that our God is no god.

O that thou wouldst rend the heavens and come down [shouts Isaiah], as when fire kindles brushwood and the [subsequent] fire causes water to boil [so that thy adversaries might know thy Name and tremble at thy presence].

“Of course, there might be a good reason that this does not happen,” says Isaiah; “Thou treatest a righteous nation as a friend,” Isaiah says to the Lord God Almighty, “but for a long time now,” says Isaiah, “for a long time now we have not lived as God’s friends; . . . we have been a long time in our sins . . . there is no one that calls upon thy name, that bestirs himself to take hold of thee [and] thou hast hid thy face from us, and hast delivered us into the hand of our iniquities.”

    . . . The remedy for this sort of thing; . . . the remedy for the sort of thing Isaiah complains to God about; . . . the remedy for not being able to see God on account of the darkness our iniquities cause, Saint Paul says; . . . the remedy for darkness is the light that has been revealed by God in the face of His Son, Jesus Christ.  . . . Moreover, with the Advent of Jesus the Lord God Almighty established a perpetual light; . . . He established the perpetual light of a holy nation; . . . He established the perpetual light of an holy Church.  By renunciation of the powers of world, flesh, and the devil, and by Baptism into the sacred Death and Resurrection of Jesus, and by participation in His sacred Life conveyed in His imperishable words and in the touch and taste of His sacramental Body and Blood, . . .

[we are] sanctified in Christ Jesus, [Saint Paul writes to the Church at Corinth]; . . . [we are] sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints [called to be holy persons; called to be holy men and holy women] together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours . . . who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.  God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

    And so, Jesus Himself, using apocalyptic language and images from the Book of the Prophet Daniel; . . . Jesus Himself tells us, today, that within a month of His Crucifixion (when, after that tribulation, the moon fades away so as not to give its light); . . . within a month of His Crucifixion and Resurrection (when the powers in the heavens; . . . when the powers within the spiritual realms of life and of death are shaken), . . . the risen Son of man will Ascend to the Father; . . . will come to the Lord God Almighty in the clouds with great power and glory.

    . . . “And then,” Jesus says, “And then [after a time; when the Father gives the word, the Son will] “send out angels, and gather his elect [His Church] from the four winds, from the ends of the earth [from among the living] and to the ends of heaven [from among the dead].”  . . . But how long the time will be before that happens, Jesus says, “no one knows, not even the angels . . . nor the Son, but only the Father.”  . . . And so, . . . Christ’s word to His Church before His Crucifixion . . . and today, after His Ascension; . . . Christ’s word to His Church is, “Watch!”

    And so, now that the Church Year has eded with our celebration of the Kingship of Jesus, . . . today, on the first day of the new Church Year, . . . we remember that we are in the “in between time.”  We remember, today, that we are still watching for Christ to send His angels to us.  . . . Today, on the first day of the new Church Year we watch for the Advent of Christ . . . and remember the caution of the prophets such as Isaiah; . . . we remember that sin causes darkness . . . and that we must wriggle free from the grip our sins may have on us by repenting our present misusings of God’s grace, and by permitting the Ascended Jesus to make us guiltless by making ourselves and our living more simple, more chaste, and more focused upon the Father’s Will and Love.  We do this by fasting during this penitential season of Advent; . . . and we do it by increased diligence in prayer and by availing ourselves of other opportunities for worship besides Sunday.

    We also prepare for the Advent of Christ, during this “in between time;” . . . we also prepare for the Advent of Christ by enlarging the boundaries of His Church(!); . . . by increasing the light of God’s grace.  . . . We do this by enriching the lives of many by means of “all speech and all knowledge,” as Saint Paul puts it.  We prepare for the Advent of Christ in these present days by being watchful for opportunities to enrich the lives of many by speaking a timely Word of encouragement in Christ Jesus or by doing a kindly mercy which is received from God in prayer, in worship, and in His Body and Blood, . . . so that the Face of Christ might shine from His Church into the darkness . . . and convey grace; . . . so that the light of Christ might kindle hearts to burn with a knowledge and love of God.  For, as I have said, . . . you are the perpetual light which God has set upon the earth during this “in between time” . . . until the King shall gather to Himself . . . His friends.