Advent? What Advent?
Advent is possibly my favourite season in the liturgical calendar. That’s mostly because of its music and hymnody. I can still remember as a boy growing up in Florida when I first became aware of ‘O come, Emmanuel’. I say ‘became aware’ because I must have heard it many times before in church. But on this occasion, something about it’s tune and its strange and indecipherable words evoked a sense of my participating in something ancient. I had no idea what ‘root of Jesse’ or ‘desire of nations’ meant, but the music of those phrases suggested something mysterious and rich. I came to adore the other Advent hymns, too. ‘On Jordan’s bank’ remains a cue that Christmas isn’t far off and I can still hear an elderly ex-coal miner in Durham belting out ‘Lo, He comes in clouds descending’, pronouncing ‘naught’ in the second stanza as ‘nowt.’ Who doesn’t enjoy singing ‘Hills of the North rejoice’?
But I love Advent for more than its hymnody. It’s liturgically exquisite. Be it the lighting of the Advent wreaths (thank you, my Lutheran brethren), the combination of purple with green foliage, a well-done Advent Lessons & Carols, or the way the ‘O, Antiphons’ seem to summon the Old Story to new life, each liturgical performance both evokes the theme of the season itself and points to the season that is fast approaching: Christmas. I first participated in the Advent Procession at Durham Cathedral and was completely enthralled by the combination of haunting chant, profound darkness, and expanding light within that ancient space (well done, St Chad’s College!). I’m not sure any other season—not even Lent—moves people so adeptly towards the threshold of the next season. Like John the Baptist, who has become the central figure of Advent, the season points less to itself than to the one to come—all the while, encouraging us to ‘be alert’ to the light that shines out in the darkness.
I’d like to believe all of this grounds me spiritually in the days leading up to Christmas. But generally it doesn’t. To be a vicar in Advent is to be busy. Forget about the usual round of pastoral duties, now you have to prepare for Christmas, and organise and/or attend a multitude of carol concerts, singalongs, parties, and the like. God help you if there’s a pastoral crisis, some kind of blow up in your church, or something else that requires your attention. I recall my first Advent as a priest in the Church of England. By the time Christmas Eve arrived, I’d conducted something like twelve services, ten funerals, compered three carol concerts, participated in three school Christmas services, and helped to show the then British Prime Minister around a school. I wanted to say, ‘Bah! Humbug!’ rather than ‘Merry Christmas’ at the Midnight Mass!
Advent is, therefore, often relegated to the background, like the Advent music I play on my laptop while writing. I used to get very exasperated about this. Advent always feels like a much needed day off that is taken up by too many chores. But, I’ve been in the ministry long enough now to know how pointless it is to complain. If the secular world has conquered Advent with Christmas, that is no one’s fault but the Church’s. We’ve done such a damn good job at promoting the celebration of Christ’s Birth that it has spilled out of the Church and into the world and out of its season into Advent. Not all the grumbling clerics in the world will change that.
Instead, I’ve come to see Advent as life in microcosm. It compresses into a few weeks both the mystery of our faith and the constant distractions and anxieties of life. More than any other season, it shows how much I live within two times—God’s and the world’s—and how bad I am at navigating them. So, I try to make myself be still just long enough to be conscious of the Light in the darkness. If I manage that, then I know I’m in a good place for the new year. If not, then I’ve probably allowed myself to become too distracted.
But that’s exactly what Jesus meant, when he warned his followers to ‘be alert.’
