This is the Sunday next before Advent, also known as Stir Up Sunday, keep reading to learn why. The last very Sunday in the liturgical year and what has seemed an almost everlasting Green Season; this past Thursday was Thanksgiving Day.
Stir Up Sunday
Stir Up Sunday is an informal term in the Anglican Church for the last Sunday before the season of Advent. The term comes from the opening words of the collect for the day in the Book of Common Prayer:
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TIR up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may of thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
Through an association of ideas, the day subsequently became connected, especially in
The Christmas pudding is an important part of the Christmas Day celebrations in the UK. Christmas pudding is a round, rich and heavy pudding made from fruit, eggs, sugar, breadcrumbs, suet, spices, and alcohol such as brandy or rum. Many families have their favorite pudding recipe, which is often passed down through generations of family members.
Stir-up Sunday is traditionally the day for making your Christmas pudding; giving it a month to mature before eating it on Christmas day. Stir-up Sunday is on 23 November this year.
According to tradition, everyone in the family (especially the children) takes a turn to stir the pudding and makes a wish while stirring. Traditionally, the pudding should be stirred from east to west in honour of the three Kings who travelled from the East to see Jesus; and it should also have 13 ingredients to represent Christ and his disciples.
It used to be common for people to put a coin in their Christmas pudding. This was supposed to bring wealth in the coming year to the person who found it.
Christmas puddings are popular in the UK, but many people now buy their puddings from their local supermarket.
In the Book of Common Prayer of 1662 and later, this collect is listed for "The Twenty-Fifth Sunday After Trinity", with accompanying rubric specifying that this collect "shall always be used upon the Sunday next before Advent". This reinforced the significance of this day as forming part of the preparation for the season of Advent. The rubric is necessary because the last Sunday before Advent does not always fall on the twenty-fifth Sunday after Trinity: Trinity Sunday is a moveable feast and the Advent season is fixed, so the number of weeks in between varies from year to year. The 1928 Book of Common Prayer solves this dilemma by marking only 24 Sundays after Trinity, with provision for two more, and setting this Sunday apart as “Next before Advent.”
The propers for the Sunday next before Advent can be found in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer on Page 225-226:
The Sunday next before Advent
The Collect.
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TIR up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may by thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Epistle for today came from the Book of Jeremiah, the Twenty-Third Chapter, beginning at the Fifth Verse. Foretelling the arrival of Jesus, Jeremiah prophesied, “I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is his name whereby he shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.” He prophesied the New Covenant, moving reference of the Lord from Egypt to Israel and the return to one people of those driven out of their homeland across the world.
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EHOLD, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is his name whereby he shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that they shall no more say, The LORD liveth, which brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt; but, The LORD liveth, which brought up and which led the seed of the house of Israel out of the north country, and from all countries whither I had driven them; and they shall dwell in their own land.
The Holy Gospel for today came from the Gospel according to Saint John, the Sixth Chapter, beginning at the Fifth Verse. John relates one of the feeding the masses in the wilderness events. This forshadows the arrival of the Christ at Christmas coming to feed our spiritual needs in the wilderness of this world.
With five thousand men with them looking for food in the wilderness, “One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, saith unto him, There is a lad here, which hath five barley loaves, and two small fishes: but what are they among so many? And Jesus said, Make the men sit down. Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down…” Reminding us that if the Son of God gave thanks to God for His food, so ought we, “Jesus took the loaves; and when he had given thanks, he distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were set down; and likewise of the fishes as much as they would. When they were filled, he said unto his disciples, Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost. Therefore they gathered them together, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which remained over and above unto them that had eaten. Then those men, when they had seen the miracle that Jesus did, said, ‘This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world.’”
Compare to saving our souls and feeding the inner hunger we have for God’s love, feeding a mere 5,000 men is child’s play, but then Jesus said we should accept God and His love through Him as the children do. So perhaps it really is child’s play.
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HEN Jesus then lifted up his eyes, and saw a great company come unto him, he saith unto Philip, Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat? And this he said to prove him: for he himself knew what he would do. Philip answered him, Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little. One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, saith unto him, There is a lad here, which hath five barley loaves, and two small fishes: but what are they among so many? And Jesus said, Make the men sit down. Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, in number about five thousand. And Jesus took the loaves; and when he had given thanks, he distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were set down; and likewise of the fishes as much as they would. When they were filled, he said unto his disciples, Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost. Therefore they gathered them together, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which remained over and above unto them that had eaten. Then those men, when they had seen the miracle that Jesus did, said, This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world.
Sermon – Reverend Jack Arnold - Time and Action
Church of the Faithful Centurion - Descanso, California
Today’s sermon brought the Collect, Epistle and Gospel together because as is always the case there is a unifying message in the Scripture for this Sunday.
The Sunday next before Advent
The Collect.
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TIR up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may by thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Jeremiah prophesies the coming of Jesus out of the branch of David that He might unite God’s people as one under a New Covenant. Christ is the key piece to the puzzle of the Old Testament prophecies. He is the answer to all of the prophecies the Old Testament contains about our savior. John tells us Jesus comes to fill both our spiritual and physical hunger. Our spiritual hunger in that by His Coming, we will have the Word as our spiritual bread and drink. And our physical hunger by the fact if we follow what He says and do our best, we should have no problems getting food to eat. The collect is calling us to action, to perform good works to advance the cause of the Gospel.
The collect is asking us to allow God into our hearts so that we can go forth and do good works that the Good News might be spread. When God enters into our hearts, he will give us spiritual food and drink that will be more filling to our souls than the lembas bread from Lord of the Rings, it will sustain us on our spiritual journeys here on earth and guide us on that narrow and upward path towards heaven. We just have to let Him into our hearts and provide us with that nourishment.
Once He is in our hearts, we are to let Him stir up His Will in our hearts, to incline us to perform good works for Him and to go out and actually perform those good works. Then through these actions we will truly get our just reward. Our wills are naturally inclined towards not following Him; we need to have our wills reset towards following Him.
We have to throw off our old man, to quote Saint Paul and to put on the new armor and helmet of the new man. We have to let the Holy Ghost into us and cleanse us of our old sinful selves. For without the Holy Ghost’s influence, we cannot truly be able to willing follow Him and act for Him on our own intuition. For our natural intuition is corrupt, by the disease of sin eating away at our very souls. Only the great doctor, God himself, can cure us of this otherwise incurable disease.
Nothing else in this world will satisfy us like God and the Word of God can. He is the answer to the missing hole in so many people’s hearts and lives. There is so much evidence of this missing hole in people’s lives today. Our broken society is a reflection of the missing gigantic God shaped hole. Yet nobody wishes to acknowledge or recognize this hole. The church sadly has been complicit in this by allowing the devil to enter into the church. No house divided against itself shall stand and sadly that is what is happening with the modern church. We have found that no art or work of mammon can come even close to the pure satisfaction following God provides. Yet because so many people have been blinded by Satan, they won’t see this. This is the only possible way we can truly be satisfied, everything else is a shadow of true happiness and satisfaction. God is the only way in which we can truly be happy, for everything else is worthless to our wellbeing, except for the joy of following Him.
If we follow our own heart and guidance, we will seek the things of this world. As explained before, the things of this world cannot compare in satisfaction value to God and the Word of God. There are plenty of examples through ought history where we can see how much evil action can be laid to coveting and some of these other evil desires by not only persons, but nations. We can look at the examples of the early wars in Europe, and of late, of the wars started by Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan for examples.
These examples show we are not truly capable of satisfying ourselves, but only Jesus and the Holy Spirit can fill the hole. We cannot replace God with man as some liberal minded folk in this country are so apt to think. This is why we truly need the Holy Ghost acting in our hearts and cleansing us of these impure thoughts. We desperately need the influence the Trinity provides in our life. Our life will be so much more rewarding and happier, if we have them involved in our lives, versus those who do not have them in their life.
As we are nearing the beginning of Advent, let us think ahead to the joy of Christmas, the birth of Christ, His entry into this world, the joy of Epiphany, His revealing to the world. Then look ahead at the horror, pain and sadness of Good Friday. This lets us see the joy of eternal life He gave us, came at a very heavy price. Jesus gave His Own Life so we might have eternal happiness and not only that but he had to go down into hell and do battle with the devil.
The World is always constantly changing things to suit its sinful desires. However those of us who follow God do not change from the truth. This is why we will never be fully satisfied with things of this world, but we will be satisfied with what God provides for us.
He asks of us nothing special; but just to do our very best and not just say it. It is something that I am striving to work on more and more every day. We must keep learning and following His Word. It is a hard concept for many of us to follow, including myself, but we must all strive more and more every day to do our very best. If we study Scriptures diligently and work hard to follow them to the best of our abilities, then we will, with the Holy Spirit’s help, be charted on an excellent course.
Interestingly, He tells the disciples to “Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.” It seems He is talking about the sheep that He tends to, He wishes to “gather up the fragments that remain”, meaning the people apart from His flock, that “nothing be lost”, meaning that their souls may not be lost for eternity. Think about that and take what it is offered before it is no longer on the menu! And be thankful for All His Blessings in our lives, for our friends and our family that He has placed in our lives.
We are blessed and should be grateful we are in a spiritually rich group (The Anglican Orthodox Church) and in communion with some very good men and women across the Earth in the AOC Worldwide Church, who hold true to the principles of Scripture. God has blessed us all by bringing us together. I am thankful for each and every person in the AOC Church and my family and friends. At Thanksgiving, we should be thankful most of all for God sending His Son to die for us, that we might have eternal life and happiness instead of the eternal misery that comes from the separation from God.
Actions speak louder than words, when we actually use that inspiration of the Holy Ghost and a couple well thought out words with actions, we can do many marvelous things in the lives of people around us, through His Spirit and Word and we will help to fill people’s spiritual hunger, through acting through His Word, in thought, word and deed.
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
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