Today we will look at a seasonal carol and consider how it informs our approach to the Advent season. We will also study the Christmas story through EYES of FAITH, understanding that metaphor can be part of the scriptural method of teaching.
PREFACE:
As usual, I begin with my disclaimer: I’m not a religious authority; I seek simply to responsibly represent my understanding.
By way of introduction to our Advent study using a Christmas carol, let me give you the four premises under which I am operating:
There is some mystery in the way the Christmas story is presented to us.
Therefore, notwithstanding its historical authenticity, it’s helpful to view some of the Christmas expression as Metaphor. And I am defining Metaphor here as a symbolic representation of a truth that can be either a little complicated to understand on its own, or a truth that has a broader implication we want to explore.
Third premise: Our Christmas experience will be more impactful for us depending on what we think, what we feel, and what we do during this Advent Season
What we actually believe about the Christmas Story will affect how much we get out of Advent.
So, to recap:
All genuine religion contains some mystery.
Metaphor is helpful when you’re trying to get a handle on mystery.
What we do during Advent makes Christmas more meaningful.
How much we get out of Advent depends on what we believe about Christmas.
A Brief History of Advent (Based partially on notes by Episcopal Priest Justin Holcomb)
Advent is a four-week season . . . dedicated to reflective preparation,
Preparation for the arrival, or "the advent" of two things:
one, Jesus’ nativity at Christmas time,
and two, Jesus’ Second Coming.
Advent began, during the 4th and 5th centuries, as a season of preparation for the baptism of new Christians. By the 6th century, Advent was tied the the coming of Christ; not, however, to Jesus coming to be born in the manger but to His second coming in the clouds, as the judge of the world. Finally, in the Middle Ages, Advent was linked to the Christmas story as well.
In order to balance these two elements of remembrance and anticipation, the first two Sundays in Advent look forward to Christ’s second coming, and the last two Sundays look backward to remember Christ’s first coming, at Christmas.
We get a visual reminder of this in the four weekly Advent candles:
On the first Sunday of Advent we light the Candle of Hope, sometimes called the Prophecy candle, because it’s based upon the reading in Isaiah 9:6-7, which says, in part:
For unto us a child is born, a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. He will reign on David’s throne, upholding it with justice and with righteousness.
On the second Sunday of Advent we light the Peace Candle, based on the assurances of Isaiah 40:
Comfort my people, says your God. … Proclaim to [Jerusalem] that her hard service has been completed, … A voice of one calling in the wilderness: Prepare the way for the Lord, and He will tend his flock like a shepherd: He will gather the lambs in his arms.
On the third Sunday we light the Joy Candle, sometimes called the Shepherd’s Candle.
Here we look to Luke’s Gospel story of the angels bringing joyful news to the shepherds, and also
passages such as Philippians 4:4, where Paul tells us:
Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!
On the fourth Sunday we light the Love Candle. It represents the boundless love of God, made manifest at Christmastime by sending us the baby Jesus.
We may ask ourselves, Do the people who know me sense that I have any Hope, or Peace, or Joy, or Love about me?
To help us get a handle on some of this, let’s turn to the song O Little Town of Bethlehem.
O LITTLE TOWN OF BETHLEHEM
Words by Phillips Brooks, 1868 Music by Lewis H. Redner, 1868
Background:
The Rev. Phillips Brooks, pastor of Trinity Church in Philadelphia, was one of America’s outstanding preachers of the 19th century. In December of 1865, the Civil War had just ended, President Lincoln had been assassinated, and so — looking for a little peace and quiet in his own personal life — Pastor Brooks took a trip to the holy land. On Christmas Eve he rode a horse out from Jerusalem, and through the quiet fields as the STARS were just coming out.
Brooks rode the six miles into the peaceful village of Bethlehem, where he was especially moved by worship at the church of the Nativity. Three years later he composed the text of O Little Town of Bethlehem for Trinity’s children to sing at their Sunday School Christmas program.
Note of interest here:
In contrast to many other Christmas hymns that emphasize the glory of God as seen in the grand chorus of angels, Brooks focuses instead on the quietness of Christ’s birth, and how little attention it got from the larger world.
Brooks gave his poem to the church organist Lewis Redner and asked him to compose a simple melody that the children could easily sing. Redner would later say, “Neither Mr. Brooks nor I ever thought the carol, or the music to it, would live beyond that Christmas of 1868.”
Before we explore my take as to why it’s become a favorite Christmas carol, let me say as prelude that one of the powerful images for me — which we find popping up several times in the carol — is the Bethlehem STAR.
For me, that star, the one that drew the Magi, was hovering above the stable in Bethlehem, saying:
The Ground of the Cosmos . . . is here.
Your raison d’être . . . is here.
The ultimate fulfilment of your deepest needs and desires . . . is here.
Don’t miss it.
Some of you may be asking yourselves: “But Paul, you were talking Advent, and this is a Christmas carol.”
Aha! It was. But we are going to “Adventize” this song, because I want each of you reading this to think of yourself as the town of Bethlehem.
At Advent’s culmination, Jesus wants to be born in you, and you have to decide if and how you’re going to prepare for that. Will there be room in your inn, or not? A fair question, because it’s a crazy-busy time in a crazy year, and there’s lots of stuff competing for your attention.
To help us decide how to spend our Advent time, let’s turn to the carol.
Verse 1. O little town of Bethlehem,
In a traditional study of Bethlehem, we would ask: Why Bethlehem? And two traditional answers are:
One, the prophecy in Micah 2, as told to the King Herod and the Magi:
But you, Bethlehem in Ephrathah, small as you are, out of you shall come forth a governor of Israel.
And two, it was the place of King David’s birth, “to which Joseph, a descendent of King David, had to return for tax purposes.”
But we’re going to study Bethlehem because that’s where the eternal Christ chose to express itself as a human being, and maybe there are some clues as to how the Christ can be born in us this Christmas.
So, when you read the word “Bethlehem,” substitute you own name in there.
O, Little Town of (name), how still we see thee lie.
How still we see thee lie.
For Advent starters, I would encourage you to set aside some regular quiet time to do your pondering and praying. The Spirit is always present, but we drown Her out with the noise of our daily days.
The Holy Spirit is always ready to meet with us, but it’s really easy to miss it if we don’t intentionally carve out some personal quiet time, some stillness.
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep,
The contemplative James Finley gives us some help here. He says,
We do not have the power within us to make the Holy Spirit do anything, but we can freely choose to assume the stance that offers the least resistance, to being overtaken by the Spirit, to be overtaken by the sense of a Oneness with God.
We can prepare our mind and heart to be receptive. The rest is up to the Spirit.
the silent stars go by.
As we’re thinking of them here, stars represent the presence of the Holy Spirit, the Christmas Spirit,
entering into your consciousness.
Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting light;
Where are the dark streets among your interior pathways, you Bethlehems? This Advent season, you might want to take your own emotional pulse, your intellectual pulse, your spiritual pulse.
The Gospel of John says:
The Light has come into the world, and people loved darkness more than light.
Can that Everlasting Light penetrate the defenses of our personal “dark streets?”
If we begin to contemplate just how huge “Everlasting” is, maybe we’ll begin to understand the unending length and breadth of God’s love and patience, waiting around for us to come around.
the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.
Hope is the first Advent candle.
Hope is one of the Big Three: Faith, Hope, Love.
Hope is not just wishful thinking. It’s based on the solid ground of our experiences, historical validity, scriptural references, whatever spiritual energy oscillates within us and the decisions and intents of our inner hearts.
That’s Hope.
And as to the fears of all the years: in his Pulitzer Prize winning book The Denial of Death, cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker explored the themes of death, and meaning, and culture. Becker argued that most human action is taken to avoid the inevitability of death.
There’s a lot to unpack there. But let’s just say that if many of our primal fears are concerning our worthiness, our significance, and our legacy, then Advent is the right season to address them. Because,
Big Question, Who is going to be born in that stable in Bethlehem?
And remember, we’re saying that, for now, that stable is YOU.
Big Answer: God’s antidote to meaninglessness and death will be born in that “stable.” Jesus the Christ.
Verse 2. For Christ is born of Mary,
Another Advent concept upon which to reflect is the humanity of Jesus Bar Joseph, the wandering Rabbi from Nazareth who also happens to be the Cosmic Chris and member of the Trinity — who, remarkably, had a human mother, Mary. This is a powerful truth, for several reasons.
First, it was foretold in Isaiah 7:
Therefore, the Lord Himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel.
Second, it demonstrates Mary’s remarkable faith and courage, to keep her cool in the presence of an angel, and also to risk getting pregnant while being unmarried, in a culture that could stone her to death.
Third, it elevates women to their proper place in a Scripture entirely recorded by men, who tended to minimize the impact of the women, sometimes right out of the narrative altogether.
And fourth, Mary as Jesus’ mother is a powerful truth because, as Fr. Richard Rohr wrote,
Elevating the Mother Mary to an almost mystical status may be a bit of a theological stretch, but it was an otherwise brilliant move because it gives the whole female half of the human population someone to relate to.
And gathered all above
While mortals sleep, the angels keep
Their watch of wondering love
We need to re-order the next few lines to make sense out of them.
While gathered all above, the angels keep their watch of wond’ring love.
All this while mortals sleep. It is comforting to know that, whether we’re sleeping or awake—in other words “at all times.” God’s protection continues unabated, God’s personal plans for us remain viable, and God’s cosmic vision continues to work itself out.
The angels are a part of that protection process. Some of us have experienced them vividly. There are some great stories angel encounter stories, right among us here in this parish. And I believe that all of us who actively seek to welcome God into our hearts have had interactions with angels, whether we’re aware of it or not.
And here’s the word of wondering LOVE: the fourth Advent candle.
Love is the heart of it all: John 4:7-9 reminds us that:
Love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
Contemplative thought would say that not only is God love, but all that has been created . . .
everything . . . is a physical manifestation of God’s love.
And, of course, John goes on to say:
The love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent His only son into the world, so that we might live through Him.
Lotta good LOVE stuff to ruminate on during this Advent season.
O morning stars together proclaim the holy birth
There’s a lot we could explore about the power of stars to proclaim a holy birth.
Of course there’s the Bethlehem star that the Magi followed. And, one of the many names for Jesus is “Bright and Morning Star.”
But I want to talk about the overwhelming influence of stars in the cosmos. Clearly, if anything can proclaim the all-encompassing, immeasurable power of God, it’s the stars. So, as part of your Advent regimen, you might want to get an extra God-boost by doing some stargazing.
And praises sing to God, the King,
Praise is a potent element to work into your Advent lifestyle. Psalm 92:1 reads, “It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praise to your name, Most High.” Some folks say God really needs our praise. Others say we praise God because we need to. All I know is, it sure helps keep your relationship in focus: Who’s God, and who’s not.
And peace to folk (men) on earth.
And we’re not talking about your garden-variety peace.
Peace is the fourth Advent candle. Jesus said:
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God. —Matthew 5
Jesus also said:
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you, and not as the world gives. —John:14:27
In these crazy and turbulent times, I think we have an obligation to pray for world peace, although I know as well as you that by and large Jesus stayed out of political conflict. His marching orders were primarily to us as individuals, not as groupies. And I believe that applies to the peace He gives as well. As we pray for societal peace we know that, as Christians, WE are the ones given the charge to be kind to our enemies, to stride out into the melee with peace in our souls, and just love . . . everybody.
Verse 3. How silently, how silently
Pastor Brooks wrote “How silently,” and then after the comma he wrote a second time . . . “How silently.”
Syntax matters.
Word clues. We don’t want to miss ’em. So here we’ve got two “how silently”s.
Well, Silence is the absence of sound.
Was God being silent to avoid bothering anybody?
Was the silence to protect secret information of some kind?
Was the silence to minimize the importance of the deed?
Why didn’t Jesus make a bigger impact by being born, to great fanfare, in Jerusalem or Rome?
In answer to that, I stumbled upon a lovely quote from biographer Evelyn Beatrice Hall:
There is always more goodness in the world then there appears to be, Because goodness is, of its very nature, modest and retiring.
So far, our song has talked about Stillness and Silent stars, Dark streets, and Mortals sleeping.
That seems to me to be the typical way the Holy Spirit works in our lives: Unobtrusively.
The wondrous gift is giv’n.
Here is the colossal contrast between the inestimable Christmas gift of love and light and life, vis a vis the humble silence in which it was given. For me, this is one of our big Advent challenges: to keep perspective between the cute manager scene with shepherds and wisemen in bathrobes and all, as over against the monumental importance of the occasion.
So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of His heav’n.
Rumi, the 13th century Islamic mystic, wrote: “The light which fills the heart is the light of God, which is pure and separate from the light of intellect and sense.”
We’ll come back to that quote in a minute.
Episcopal contemplative Cynthia Bourgeault [The Wisdom Jesus, pp. 33–37] points out that our brains are a binary operating system; that is, they perceive through differentiation. In other words, our brains identify things by noticing how they are different from other things, such as How is a dog not like a cat?
and What makes that person different from me?
Our so-called “binary brains” serve us well; they help each of us discern that we are an individual, distinct from everybody else.
But another operating system is available to us, a non-dual system, a unitive system, the operating system of the heart. Unlike the brain, the heart does not perceive by differentiation: No, the heart perceives by means of harmony, by seeing the bigger picture, by seeing not how things are different, but where they are similar; how everything is connected.
From the perspective of singleness, there is now no separation between God and humans,
or between humans and other humans.
As Advent people in this current contentious society, we can learn to focus on what we have in common rather than on what divides us.
No ear may hear His coming,
Talking about ears, friends kept telling me I wasn’t hearing everything, so I got some hearing aids. And they really improved the higher frequencies, but I still don’t hear everything, and I figured out why. When I am really focused on something, I can tune everything else out. I’m suggesting that, in this Advent season, we all run that risk. If we’re too overcome with life in general, we just tune out the cries of the baby in Bethlehem.
And while we’re talking about His coming, let’s also address “Advent as a preparation for Christ’s second coming.” According to references in the New Testament, God’s people wait for the return of Christ in glory to consummate His eternal kingdom. Christian beliefs about this run the whole gamut, from embracing a literal translation of the biblical passages to treating it primarily as metaphor.
Episcopalians don’t tend to talk much about it, so let’s just say that wherever you fall within this wide spectrum of interpretations, your Advent charge is the same: to live in a manner worthy of the coming age, fostering a spirit of faithfulness and vigilance in expectation for what God is going to do.
But in this world of sin,
O my stars! Here’s the other big controversial topic: Sin.
What is sin? I keep thinking of that Capital One commercial: What’sin your wallet?
Think about that for a minute. Anyway, the general definition of sin is: The offence of breaking a religious or moral law. Sin could be something you did, or something you neglected to do. Sin could be large; it could be small. Or — and here’s the biggie: sin could be an overarching condition in which the self is estranged from God.
As with the Second Coming, there are a number of different takes on this:
From Augustine’s doctrine of Substitutionary Atonement, which states that humanity was estranged from God until Jesus died on the cross, thereby liberating us from sin and death, over to the view of the Franciscans, Celtic Christians, and others who believe that humans are born intrinsically good, even though the goodness is often masked by our sins.
So, whatever you believe about sin, your Advent call is the same:
To recognize, Mr. and Ms. Bethlehem, that this Christmas God is coming to you, sins and all.
Where meek souls will receive Him still,
Let’s get a handle on the work “meek.” It can be used to describe those who are shy, timid, or retiring.
But also those who are reserved, reticent, modest, or humble.
Then there’s Jesus, who, with the moral gravity of the whole of creation behind Him, never used His power to force his will on anybody. It’s not that He was bashful or unassertive. It was a special kind of Jesus- humble, which we’ll discuss in a minute. But first, let’s explore humility on our level.
The dear Christ enters in.
So the Spirit of Christ enters into those who are meek or humble in heart.
There was an ambitious student who wanted to study with a certain renowned Master. He secured an interview and was ushered into the Master’s house to present himself. Wanting to impress the Master with his extensive knowledge, he started right in. Blah, blah, blah.
Clearly, he saw himself as a rising star. Blah, blah, blah.
After some minutes of this, the Master began to pour a cup of tea. Blah, blah, blah.
Soon the cup was full, but the Master kept right on pouring.Blah— blah — Now tea was running all over the table. The student cried, “Stop pouring — the cup is full!” To which the Master replied: “Yes, and so are you. How can I possibly teach you?”
Well, if the inn is full, I guess there’s no room for the Christ child.
Verse 4. O holy Child of Bethlehem, Descend to us, we pray;
The mystic Bernadette Roberts noted that the crucifixion wasn’t really the hardest thing for Jesus to bear; the hard thing was the incarnation. Crucifixion and what followed from it — His death and resurrection — were simply the pathway along which infinite consciousness could return to its natural state. What was really hard for infinite consciousness was to come into our finite world in the first place.
[C. Bourgeault, The Wisdom Jesus, pp.92-3]
Squeezed on down to . . . one of us.
Do we really understand what the Jesus the Christ went through to come below and be born in Bethlehem? That’s the infinite love of God made infinitely humble for our sakes.
Cast out our sin and enter in; be born in us today
And you, you special Bethlehems; You are the ones into whom He wants to be born. He says, I created you out of pure love, and that’s how I see you. But you’ve still got some cleaning up to do. C’mon, let work on it together.
We hear the Christmas angels the great glad tidings tell;
Ah, the shepherds and their “[sing] Joy to the world”:
Now we’ve got the third Advent candle: Joy.
At the first Christmas, the angels sang to the shepherds. (And to the stars).
For this Advent season they’re going to be singing to us. If you want to hear them, you’ll have to be intentional to make some space in your busy world and your frantic mind. It’s in times like these that we decide for ourselves exactly how great those great glad tidings are. And that determines what we hear.
Oh, come to us, abide with us, Our Lord, Emmanuel!
Emmanuel, of course, means “God with us.” Theologian Hans Kung wrote,
God is the primal reason of all reality, God is the primal support of all reality, God is the primal goal of all reality. God is our beginning, our middle, and our ending.
Saying it another way, contemplative James Finley wrote that
God is Love, and therefore Love is our origin, Love is our ground, and Love is our destiny.
Jesus came from God and returned to God.
We came from Love and are destined to return to Love.
And while we’re here, while we’re waiting, it’s all Love.
OK. There’s our grand project for this Advent season.
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