On the First Sunday of Advent
That we should rise up from our sins, conquer our enemies, and perceive in our souls the gracious future of our Lord.
Hora est nos jam de somno surgere. (Latin from Romans 13:11)
It is time for us to rise from our sleep.
Today we celebrate the beginning of Advent, that is, the arrival of our Lord. Now begins a delightful time, during which joyful and devout words will be read and sung in the holy church. For as man encounters all other times with desire and joy, so this time is especially intimate and holy as compared to other feasts. This is the time for which all the prophets and saints of the Old Testament for five thousand years demanded and called for with great desire and sighs. Lord, tear apart heaven and come down to illuminate those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death. Also, all the stories and symbols of the Old Testament are arranged so that they point to the greatness of him who was to come and now has come. Oh, therefore, let us thank and praise God without end that he has made us in the time of grace and desires to share with us all his graces and riches if only we ourselves so desire.
Now the holy apostle admonishes us that we should rise from the sleep of our sins because the night is past, the day has come; therefore, we should live honestly in the day. Now we should diligently notice how we have fallen from our first innocence and how we are to rise from all sins and faults.
Our Lord created mankind so that the individual places in the heavenly kingdom would be filled with them. Lucifer himself was thrown out of those places along with his company. This same Lucifer, in his fierce hate, also betrayed man so that he disobeyed God and lost all grace and virtue, in which he was supposed to be equal to God and the angels. Lucifer poisoned man’s innocent nature so that it became unclean, and man thereby wounded himself to death with the blindness of his reason, with the follies and wickedness of his will, with wicked desires in his behavior, and with illness in angry power. He was exalted and did not understand it; he has now become equal to dim animals.
Therefore, it follows that three enemies wage war against us, which now unfortunately have prevailed and reign in the hearts of people: the world, the enemy, and the flesh. When these three have their way, the noble soul, which God so graciously chose, is lost. For the souls against which these enemies prevail unquestionably receive eternal death. How cruelly and savagely these three enemies now reign and possess God’s places throughout much of mankind, both spiritually and worldly (as it seems to appear). The friends of God who love and obey God mourn this state of things with bitter tears. For the eternal shame of their nights is a great suffering to them, that their hearts in their bodies might dry up from the great pain in which self-love is rooted, which causes so few people to desire to love and to obey God.
The world reigns with pride both internally and externally. How many people belong to these devilish orders? They want to appear as something and act as if their sins and defects would not be counted.
The kingdom of the enemy leads them to bitterness, to hate and anger, to suspicion, to judgment, to revenge, to displeasure, to rifts. All his disciples are divisive, without love, and mournful in their nights.
Our own flesh wants to squander time and have things done well, and have sensuous pleasure and ease in all things. The people do not know what great harm comes from this, especially those who are blinded by it.
Through these three enemies, most people are misled into eternal damnation.
Whoever, however, desires to return to his first honor and worth, which Adam lost through his sins, and we after him, and who desires to give the future of our Lord place in his soul, must flee the world, overcome the enemies, conquer his flesh in humility, and exercise himself diligently in these six practices. Mankind fell in paradise through two things: lust and pride; therefore, we must counter these with two things, so that nature can regain its strength. We must resist and die to all disorderly lust, masculine and humble. Additionally, we must decrease and suppress our nature with deep humility before God and all mankind against which it has raised itself in pride. Devote yourself always in a humble state so that you may rise to the highest level. With these two practices, your nature will win back its original strength.
A person must further become equal to the angels in two things. He must forgive and excuse all who do him harm. He must be a fair friend to his enemies, as the angels do when we provoke them often to anger with our sins. Furthermore, he must serve his neighbors willingly as the dear angels continuously serve us through God.
A person must finally become equal to God in two things. The first is right obedience, as our Lord gave to his heavenly Father even unto death. The second is that he is to grow and persist in obedience and in all virtues until the end of his life.
Through these practices, people will become faithful, heavenly hearts and will become one spirit with God in foundational humility, willful calm, gentle patience, mere poverty of the spirit, and fiery love of God. And all who follow this kingdom (of whom there are unfortunately few) will overcome their enemies, and God will redeem them from their heavy burdens and will help them to carry their trials. For God imposes on them manifold trials. The faithful God does this so that four things may be born in them. The first is that the individual would come to his senses and see from where the trial is coming, and would look carefully at himself because of the trial, and would know himself. The other thing that he questions is why God has laid on him the burden of suffering. Wherever God desires to lead him in suffering, there he follows God and submits himself in his godly will. The third thing is that the individual would leave himself and all created beings behind. The fourth is that the individual would learn true patience through diverse sufferings. What is now true patience in suffering? Is it that the individual is unmoved on the outside? No. But true patience is that the individual finds that in his essence and in reality, no one can deal or attempt injustice against him. He also finds that what he suffers is just, and that he should suffer more and more, should torment him. He learns to have merciful compassion towards all who cause him to suffer. Those who follow the humble Christ and in whom he reigns find this lesson. He spoke to them, saying: “If you remain in my words, you will truly be my disciples and you will know the truth and it will set you free.”
Now, there are two types of people who follow the word of Christ. There are those who hear it with joy, and they follow after it, and it comes true to them. They receive it with their minds, there they contemplate it and evaluate it by their natural light. What they cannot taste or feel, they reject and pursue more with their senses in order to hear new things and understand them. They do not understand that in these pursuits, they must die. If they want to grow, they must pursue a different path.
But the others tend to themselves and contemplate within themselves and take simply as true the rules from God. In reasonable clarity, they wait internally for their charge and call as God desires. They take all things as God’s means. The means that are given to finite creatures are distasteful and are also veiled and diverse, and have a taste of bitterness. He desires earthly things that must be stripped and exposed if he is to taste the spirit in truth and if he is to come to his true senses. For those who perceive within themselves the gifts and rules of God, whether by this means or that means, they take it from their reason and carry it again into the reason of godly goodness. These are those who draw and taste from the right well, but the first ones of whom we spoke seek only their own good. In all ways and means, they want to always stand in their own strength. In the truth, they do not find their own as loud and as certain as in the internal sense without means.
Now you might ask, how should one be made aware of these unexpected rules of God? Through the diligent, internal life and thought of one’s self. Therefore, the individual should be an inhabitant of himself and should let his doubts and choices be. If he spends time with himself, he will certainly become aware of what he needs to do, what God has commanded him to do internally, without means, and externally through means. Then he will let himself be and follow after God in whose way the loving God will direct him. Whether the means be by sight, through miracles, through practical or enjoyable means, he will follow God, whether in suffering or in joy. And, if God gives him none of this, so he will still trust God in simplicity and go without these things, following God in love and bringing himself into the inner sanctuary and sitting himself before the lovely image of our lovely Lord Jesus Christ. He worked all his work through three things.
The first one: he said that we should not seek anything in his works, because the glory of his heavenly father and of himself is not in individual things, whether large or small, for he bore all things in himself.
The second: he sought and said from his entire foundation the salvation and sanctification of mankind so that he saw all of mankind and brought them the knowledge of his name according to the words of St. Paul, “God desires that all men would be saved and come to the acknowledgement of his name.”
The third: he said with all his words, works, and life that he gave us a true example and image of a perfect life to the utmost.
Those who stand in this, in truth, are the finest, loveliest people. Those who are born into this community are the greatest, richest treasure of holy Christendom, and their work at all times is the best. They do not stand on small or great works, on more or less. They stand alone in God’s will in all things. For this reason, they find all their labor is the best. They also do not stand on whether God will exalt or lower them, for they desire nothing except the will of God in all things.
May God grant that this all happens to us. Amen.
- translated from German to English by Laura Glassel
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