The Advent messages of to-day, which speak to us from Collect, Epistle, and Gospel, and from the prophetic lessons of Isaiah, find a meeting-point and explanation in the strangely impressive record from St. John's Gospel which chances to be our second lesson for this afternoon. No one surely can listen to the march of those measured verses without feeling their tremendous power. But the impression becomes at once deepened and diversified, if we set ourselves to spell out a little of their meaning; and especially if, as a first step, we observe where they stand in the order of the Gospel. The next chapter, the thirteenth, begins the second part of St. John's narrative, the record of the words and deeds accompanying our Lord's departure out of the world that He might return to the Father, belonging therefore partly to the last evening, night, and day of His earthly life, partly to His manifestations of Himself to the unsealed eyes of disciples after His resurrection. The record of His ministry, in the strict sense of the word, thus ends with the twelfth chapter, and our lesson of to-day closes the story with a single significant scene, and the words which were needed to bring out its force.