My Advent Journey
I’m assuming that my Christmas spirit will emerge in the next couple of weeks. I hope so for the sake of those around me. In some ways, I feel ok about it. In other ways, it's very disorienting. I’m more tuned into Advent this year than I have been before, and the traditional ramp-up into the holiday hasn’t been the same. The traditional songs aren’t hitting the same notes for me. My emotions are not connected to the genteel and nostalgic. I’m carrying some burdens and struggling to make sense of a lot of the past year. The world isn’t silent, nor blissfully happy.
I think Advent has become more of a guide than an idea this year. The coming of a King was anything but ordinary and genteel. The arrival of a new Kingdom was disruptive, even to the point of the ruling powers ordering the murder of infants just to assuage their fears of a political rival taking over. The Advent story isn’t a nostalgic walk down memory lane. It’s also not a time to proof text the Bible to prove that Jesus was the Son of God. This year Advent is capturing my attention as a reminder of the cosmic disruption of the powers of darkness and evil that have set themselves up against God. I’m struggling when I see it commercialized, tamed, and otherwise softened to fit our holiday comfort zones.
Now, before you write me off as some sort of Scrooge, hear me out. What I’m putting words to is the growing chasm I’m feeling between what our culture has turned into merely a holiday, and what the church historically set in place as an annual reminder about the significance of who we are, whose we are, and where we fit in this life because of God’s arrival on earth. There’s a place for family time and nostalgia and Christmas traditions, but I’m being more intentional about not mingling them with Advent quite so much. Because, there needs to be a place for Advent that supersedes, and orients us to the rest of it.
A powerful story came up in one of my devotionals that has brought depth and meaning to my own journey. The author of the devotional told a story about the Christmas Carol “I heard the bells of Christmas Day” written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It is a festive, upbeat song, with a catchy tune that I enjoy singing every year. But I never knew the context. I’ll never sing it so mindlessly again.
Longfellow was a recent widower at the time of writing the poem that became a song. His oldest son had also just been shot in war and was home to recover, but clinging to life. He was caring for 5 other children, and his injured son, on his own on Christmas morning, 1863 (the heart of the American Civil War.) He was a staunch abolitionist seeing the country he loved ripped to its core by the scourge of chattel slavery. Can you just imagine in that state of mind hearing some Christmas bells start chiming? Just let that sink in for a minute.
The discontinuity in his soul obviously needed an outlet.
Here are the first few verses:
I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
and wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, goodwill to men!
And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, goodwill to men!
Till ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, goodwill to men!
Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, goodwill to men!
I can almost feel the anger, sadness, and disorientation in his spirit. The joyous sounds of the season against the backdrop of a savage war that had no end in sight. The Emancipation Proclamation he hoped would change things served only to further divide the nation. His son was clinging to life while they all navigated a highly polarized culture at war with itself. How much more can a soul take?
It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, goodwill to men!
I’ve heard it said that the Civil left no home untouched. In these words, we hear the painful recognition of that reality. These are not verses we sing each year because, well, we like to sanitize our Christmas carols and make them work with our feelings. But here’s the line that resonates in my soul this year.
And in despair I bowed my head;
“There is no peace on earth,” I said;
“For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, goodwill to men!”
That, right there…It speaks to the hopeless, the helpless, the lonely, the beat down, and tread upon. It speaks to the soul weary of life who simply cannot muster up the joy of the season by simply buying into the traditions and not accounting for the realities. It speaks to me this year.
But, for Longfellow, that despair would not get the last word. His personal anguish apparently was always to be held in the context of His firm conviction that evil would not prevail. Despite not knowing how, or when his circumstances might cause him to feel differently, he penned (a declaration of faith) the following words to close His song.
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good will to men.”
Can you hear the hope in that? The determination? The resistance paired with the longing and desperation in his soul? Faith captured so succinctly declaring that his feelings would not be the end of the story.
This story has been “ringing in my ears” ever since I read it. It seems to capture my melancholy and my disorientation. It is Advent in a song. To rush to joy and all the nostalgia of Christmas is out of step with the realities all around us and my own discomfort, pain, and disoriented feelings get caught trying to navigate through it. News and personal experiences pound against the blissful indifference the holiday tries to infuse me with. And yet, the hope and expectation that it will all work out, somehow, some way, some time is the heart of this song.
This is Advent and why I need this season not to be just about a holiday. There will be time for the joy of family gatherings, more fires in the fireplace, music, games, presents, and celebration. But before I let myself get there, this year more than others, I need it to be ok to say that all is simply not right with the world. I need to acknowledge that the empires of this world, and those not of this world, pound against my spirit, and they are heavy. I need to be reminded that this will not always be the case, and there is one who far transcends the comfortable, gentle holiday and has promised to make all things new. Advent reminds me He already did, and I am part of that journey, even when I don’t feel it. He will bring peace on earth and goodwill to everyone!
We are a people of hope. In the midst of our darkness, we cling to hope, peace, joy, and love. We believe in the Kingdom that is prevailing through us when we resist the tyranny of the empires of this world, and wrestle in the spiritual realm, standing defiantly declaring that “right will prevail!” We don’t need to see it to believe it. We know it and have faith!
This is just where I’m at this year. The joy of the holidays looms in the near term, and some extended time away beyond that. But, I’m allowing myself the freedom to not have to feel any certain way, this season, and I’m doing my best to let Advent speak to me. It is disorienting but also liberating, and even a little refreshing.