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High Spirits
Advent Is Coming
There is an alternative to the boisterous countdown of the weeks leading up to Christmas, and it’s called Advent. It starts next Sunday.
Later this month we start Advent, a spiritual season rich in visual and musical images. Its contemporary manifestations include pop-up calendars, corporate carol services, school Nativity plays, and endless renditions of “Joy to the World” or “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas.” Along with tinsel, pictures of Santa with his reindeer, and early shopping for presents, these superficialities bring to mind Garrison Keillor’s line: “A lovely thing about Christmas is that it’s compulsory, like a thunderstorm, and we all go through it together.”
But there is an alternative to the boisterous countdown of the weeks leading up to Christmas, and it’s called Advent. The older and deeper symbols of this season include readings from Isaiah and performances of Handel’s Messiah and of the earliest Advent composition known as the Great O’s or originally Antiphonae Majores. These were poetic chants written in the seventh century for the early church’s pre-Christmas liturgy. Each begins with a vocative “O” connecting ancient Hebrew invocations for the first coming of the expected Savior of Israel with petitions for his return in the second coming.
Today’s Christian worshippers are familiar with the Great O’s as incorporated into the hymn “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.” Each of the seven antiphones covers the longings expressed for both advents, as for example in:
And open wide our heavenly home
O Come, Thou key of David, come
These words are one of many indications that this is a season of haunting themes, mysteries, prophecies, and poetry. In these next few weeks we are called to prepare for the arrival, the adventus of God, who enters history in the person of Jesus Christ. It is both an individual and a collective preparation, for he comes in our own experience of him and is yet to come in the fulfilment of all things.
Collectively Advent is full of powerful symbolism. As a young cathedral choirboy I recall being overwhelmed by Wesley’s hymn “Lo! He Comes with Clouds Descending” and even more by singing the treble part of the Messiah’s opening chorus, “And the Glory, the Glory of the Lord Shall Be Revealed.”
Revelation is an essential ingredient of Advent at whose heart
is a deep yearning of the soul, waiting for the response of the God
who comes. That sense of longing is shared by many, of all faiths
and of none. For there is in humanity a general sense of fracture
coupled with a yearning for a time when hurts will be healed,
wrongs will be righted, when peace will replace violence and war.
Most of the time we paper over the cracks of such feelings and get
along with our lives quite cheerfully. But from time to time that
sense of fracture becomes very real as we discover inexplicably
bleak winters of the spirit. We feel powerless, unable to change
the situation or change our own heart. God can seem far away and
inaccessible. At such moments we long for God to reveal himself. If
only he would come to us. In the words
of Woody Allen: “If only God would give me some clear sign. Like
making a large deposit in my name in a Swiss bank.”
In the absence of the miraculous creation of a large numbered account in a Swiss bank (plus the second miracle of it being a bank that has not been pressured by the IRS into disclosing the identities of its customers), what should those of us hoping for a sign do in Advent — the season of waiting?
One of the lessons of Advent is that God does respond to those who wait on him in hope. However, it can be a response that comes neither on our terms nor suited to our timetables. The Gospel reading for Advent Sunday reminds us of this forcefully:
Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. Therefore, keep awake — for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake. (Mark 13:33-37)
A possible alternative to keeping awake is to be woken up in Advent. In my own life this has happened more than once. Those choirboy experiences of beautiful Advent music were one such instance. Although this column began with some gentle mockery of corporate carol services and school Nativity plays, I have occasionally felt holiness calling from beneath the outer carapace of corniness. Advent can be the season of divine rustlings and whisperings even amidst the secular trappings of a commercialized Christmas. And as the old saying goes: “If you don’t listen to God’s whispers, one day you will have to listen to God’s shouts.”
I am a member of a church in London, St. Matthew’s Westminster, whose vicar, Philip Chester, has a special vocation and scholarship for the spirituality of Advent. In the last few years he regularly wakes me up with stimulating sermons and readings that are the equivalent of Advent whispers. Last year he recommended two fine Advent books: Stephen Cottrell’s Do Nothing: Christmas Is Coming and Maria Boulding’s The Coming of God. Both authors encourage their readers to do less and ponder more during Advent. This pattern of patient reflection follows the example of the Virgin Mary, who after the Annunciation “pondered these things in her heart.”
Another part of the original Advent pattern is the play on light
and darkness. These contrasting forces are emphasized by the
Anglican collect for Advent, read daily in the weeks before
Christmas.
It opens with the majestic words:
Almighty God give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which Thy son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility.
Humility is the key to our Advent preparations for the one who is coming. By penitently clearing away the debris of our lives and by prayerfully waiting in hope we can fulfill Isaiah’s call “to make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”
About the Author
Jonathan Aitken, The American Spectator’s High Spirits columnist, is most recently author of John Newton: From Disgrace to Amazing Grace (Crossway Books). His biographies include Charles W. Colson: A Life Redeemed (Doubleday) and Nixon: A Life, now available in a new paperback edition (Regnery).
Letter to the Editor View all comments (30) | Leave a comment
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stephanie| 11.23.09 @ 6:49AM
God sometimes does not show himself when we most need him, or perhaps we're too wrapped up in grief or our own selfish needs to see him. My father died 2 weeks ago and I have been too filled with sadness to see his love and grace. Perhaps going through this Advent season will open my heart to his infinint (sp) grace.
I'm tryin'!
Ryan| 11.23.09 @ 8:17AM
Sincerest prayers to you and yours on the death of your father.
I sorely miss my own Grandpa every Christmas - a hard man, softened by the Gospel and his love for me and my brother.
And remember - God is there whether we see Him or not - and He is not surprised by life nor death. It's one of my own great comforts about His Grace - that His will is always Good, though we do not always see all of it.
Tim| 11.23.09 @ 8:47AM
2 Corinthians 1:3-4 (New International Version)
The God of All Comfort
3Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.
Alan Brooks| 11.23.09 @ 11:19AM
Since you're his daughter, Stephanie, then he must be in Heaven.
Is there a Heaven? there had better be.
Alan Brooks| 11.23.09 @ 11:25AM
... wait, that was bad syntax, it ought to be:
"You are his daughter, your existence suggests that he is indeed in Heaven."
Sorry, a publik skool grad can't do better than that.
Kathy Leicester | 11.23.09 @ 5:07PM
Dear Stephanie:
your comment touched my heart. All I want to offer is the sure knowledge that His grace and peace will come, eventually, and they will both be in such measure as to be beyond understanding. Until then, you're in my prayers. K
Margie| 11.24.09 @ 1:50AM
stephanie,
You are loved. Thankfully His love for us isn't based on our feelings. And since Jesus Himself was a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief (Is. 53:3), He knows you, and understands how you feel, and what you are going through. The shortest verse in the Bible is Jn. 11:35. It says "Jesus wept." This was when Mary's brother, Lazarus died. Jesus so loved Mary, and Lazarus, that he wept. He also rose him from the dead to the glory of God. He weeps with those who weep, and He also tells us to do the same. Rms. 12:15. So don't worry about your heart not being open to His Grace, for God is greater than our hearts (1 Jn. 3:20), and He knows everything.
God bless you.
Stuart Koehl| 11.23.09 @ 6:52AM
Mr. Aitken is a bit late, for those of us who are Eastern Christians (both Orthodox and Catholic alike). Our Nativity season began at sundown on 15 November, which marks the start of the forty day Nativity Fast, sometimes called Winter Lent, and also known among Slavic Christians as the Filipovka, since it begins on the Feast of St. Philip.
During the Fast, we abstain from meat, fish, dairy, wine and oil, though fish and oil are permitted on Saturdays and Sundays. Our liturgical calendar also includes additional services such as Paraclesis, and we are called upon to increased prayer and alms-giving in preparation for the birth of the Son of God.
Appleby| 11.23.09 @ 6:56AM
I have two books for the practice of Advent, one of which is called Christmastide: Prayers for Advent through Epiphany from The Divine Hours. It contains both the three daily Offices and a Compline (to be read before retiring for the night) and especially in a time like this filled with great stress and anxiety, it provides a peaceful interlude and something else to think about as we soldier on -- and as we go to sleep.
I was out shopping this weekend, not for Christmas, and I saw a very muted crowd circulating but not buying. Perhaps this would be the year for those people to rediscover Advent and the sense of waiting for something good and not for the sword to fall.
The Rev. Robert A. Shackles| 11.23.09 @ 8:18AM
Thanks for a blessed gift in what really counts!
Ryan| 11.23.09 @ 8:21AM
Probably the best Christmas show is still Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown! - its critique of the commercialism and loss of the meaning of Christmas has been poignant since it was made.
One thing I like, as a member of a Presbyterian (PCA) church (though myself closer to a Reformed Baptist) is the Protestant versions of advent, and their focus on the Gospel and the real reason for this time of year -
"For He did not come to be serve, but to serve, and give His life as a ransom for many..."
Pingback| 11.23.09 @ 8:46AM
Twitter Trackbacks for The American Spectator : Advent Is Coming [spectator.org] on links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Lisa Heffron| 11.23.09 @ 8:35PM
Eight years ago I went into preterm labor with our second daughter on December 2 and stayed in the hospital for 4 weeks battling to keep her in utero. Due to the numerous medications, I was unable to read or watch t.v. much, so I prayed nearly constantly. I called on Mary, the Mother of God (for whom our daughter is named) throughout that month to be with me. I knew she must understand the waiting a pregnant mother endures. She was my constant companion during the turbulent days and incessant fight against labor for the sake of a child. Every Advent vividly reminds me of the most precious gift of life and of the Mother who knows better than any other what it is to suffer for and with your child.
Grant| 11.24.09 @ 7:07AM
God answers prayer!
KyMouse| 11.24.09 @ 9:35AM
I, too, love "the older and deeper symbols of this season [which] include readings from Isaiah and performances of Handel's Messiah." But again this Christmas, most believers in Jesus will enjoy those selections without recalling that Isaiah was speaking to his Jewish brothers and sisters. "All we, like sheep, have gone astray...and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all," he announced (Isaiah 53:6). How many of us have tried to explain Jesus' offer of payment for sin to those to whom He first brought it -- His Jewish people? How many churches love the Jewish people enough to equip their members to do it?
As a volunteer with the "Jews for Jesus" international ministry for the past decade, I've witnessed to many Jewish people. I've explained what Jesus meant when he told Nicodemus ("a ruler of the Jews") that He fulfilled the story of Moses' raising the bronze serpent on a pole (Numbers 21:4-9). That story offers a blessing, but also a warning to Jews (and gentiles), as Jesus Himself pointed out in John 3:14-18.
Most Jewish people have never read the New Testament or examined the claims of Jesus for themselves. Their reactions to His name and message range from indifference to hostility; but a growing number of Jewish men and women are accepting Him and His gift of payment for their sins. This remnant has included British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, composer Felix Mendelssohn (who wrote the music to "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing"), astronomer William Herschel (who discovered the planet Uranus), and attorney Jay Sekulow (the American Center for Law and Justice).
Vera Schlamm, M.D., a survivor of the Bergen-Belsen death camp, wrote, "When I accepted [Jesus], it was strictly because God showed me, yes, Jesus is the expected Messiah, and that was reason enough to believe in Him...I learned that Jesus had ushered in a New Covenant prophesied by Jeremiah...I was born Jewish and I will die Jewish. My belief in the Messiah is the natural result of my search for God and the fulfillment of my Jewishness...if Jesus is the Messiah, it is no disgrace for a Jew to believe."
Dr. Schlamm put her faith in Jesus years before she died. But how many other Jewish men and women have never heard of Jesus' blessings, and His warnings, because we gentile Christians have kept them to ourselves?
Margie| 11.24.09 @ 11:30AM
True Christians witness to everyone. We have many Jewish brothers and sisters in Christ. I remember the first time meeting brothers for Jews for Jesus back in the '70's in NYC. They were handing out tracts at the same time we were. It was a real joy meeting them and I've loved them ever since. I once heard David Brickner, in more recent years, on the radio. He was getting castigated by 2 Jewish hosts, one a Rabbi. I tried calling in but couldn't get through. I sent a fax to the Rabbi telling him that just because he says a Jew cannot call himself a Jew if he believes in Christ, doesn't make it so, along with some other thoughts. I used to be a regular caller to that show and the host knew me. After that fax, though, the host wasn't interested in speaking with me anymore. The feeling was mutual.
God bless.
KyMouse| 11.24.09 @ 12:53PM
God bless you, too, Margie! Many gentile Christians are under the impression that there is a separate means of salvation for Jewish people -- I guess they've never read what Jesus actually said. John 3:14-18 is especially important.
I always ask such Christians how they explain the fact that Jesus revealed the New Covenant (Jeremiah 31:31-34) on Passover, at a Seder, to a room filled only with Jews. ...*crickets*...
I've been so blessed by working with Jews for Jesus missionaries and staff, many of whom have been rejected by their families for loving Jesus. I'm one of the chatroom hosts at the Jews for Jesus web site -- stop in some time and say hi!
Margie| 11.24.09 @ 1:17PM
:^) Thanks for the invite. Be happy to.
Isaiah 53 is has got to be the most beautiful chapter, at least it is to me. I cannot read it without crying. It is the wonderful prophecy about Christ in the Old Testament. It is unmistakeably about Him. Written hundreds of years before His birth~
Isaiah 53: "Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
For He grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; He had no form or comeliness that we should look at Him, and no beauty that we should desire Him. He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.
Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.
But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; upon Him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with His stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet He opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is dumb, so He opened not his mouth.
By oppression and judgment He was taken away; and as for His generation, who considered that He was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people?
And they made His grave with the wicked and with a rich man in His death, although He had done no violence, and there was no deceit in His mouth.
Yet it was the will of the LORD to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief; when He makes Himself an offering for sin, He shall see His offspring, He shall prolong His days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in His hand;
He shall see the fruit of the travail of His soul and be satisfied; by His knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous; and He shall bear their iniquities.
Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong; because He poured out his soul to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors."
Pingback| 11.24.09 @ 11:08PM
Advent rich in old, deep symbols « Priests’ Secretary links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Carl Gordon Pyper| 11.26.09 @ 3:16PM
Johnathan;
Thank you for your beautifully-written, instructional, and inspiring words on Advent.
I was raised, and continued into adulthood, in a very puritanical, judgemental, and conditionally-tolerant religion. By "happenstance," I was introduced to the concept of the unconditional love of God by way of R.C. clergy, religious, and parishioniers. Through my Catholic friendships, I came to appreciate the liturgy. Though refraining from outright membership, I fell deeply and permanently in love with the Roman Church...and a new life was in the making for me.
Eventually, I attended my first service ever at an Episcopal church. It was their Christmas Mass. Upon entering, I was awstruck with two thoughts: "So, THIS is where CHRISTMAS came from!" and "This place looks like a Catholic church that the English 'fixed.'" I started attending regularly.
With initial encouragement from a young, idealistic, talented priest, and an endulgent deacon, I have found the beautuful Anglican liturgy to be a fundamental practical help in my quest for God...especially during Advent and the 12 days of Christmas.
Please keep writing!
Best Regards,
C.G. Pyper
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