This post starts out sad, but, much like Advent, turns into Christmas: Advent didn't end softly in my world. Yesterday, Christmas Eve, I sat with a family whose otherwise healthy child became dangerously ill that same morning. So instead of the normal last-minute holiday wrapping, cooking, and planning, the family gathered at the hospital and tearfully kept vigil over the balance between life and death of a toddler. And I sat with them.
This story could be another apt illustration of Advent need and lament. But to leave it as lament ignores that there is so much more that our faith offers. At the very least, what a strange wonder that this same night Christians the world over would celebrate the birth of the Christ child, God-with-us. That is: God-with-us here, in this, right now. In our joy and our pain.
Lindsey and I both have a soft spot for this tender little song, the Friendly Beasts, with its child-like language about Jesus' birth. Given all the sad news about children this year, from Sandy Hook all the way to this toddler's sudden illness, it seems only appropriate to let the children carry the lead in the music department today, because we could stand to re-learn from the wonder, the joy, the magic, and the play of how children experience the Christmas story.
Yet children aren't immune to the pain of life. Each family I visited on Christmas Eve in the children's hospital was accompanied by the young patients' siblings, worrying, but also wondering aloud about other important issues... like how Santa would leave presents in the hospital. Unsure and scared about their families, yes, but also hoping and joyful about the promises of this Christmas day. Filled with possibilities and magic, dreams and wild imaginings for what Christmas Day might bring to their lives in so many ways.
There's something so deeply corny about a lot of Christmas music. All this smarmy singing about Santa's sleigh and chestnuts roasting and letting it snow... as if those were the most important wishes on our list. Yet even for those who celebrate Christmas but wouldn't consider themselves terribly religious, we know that most holiday hopes go deeper than that. And especially for those of us who observe Advent, we know thatsometimes our hopes for the ourselves and the world can go so deep we don't even know how to say them.
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.
- Romans 8:26
Despite the depth of our hopes, sometimes we look for the right words, and all we come up with is "Have a Holly Jolly Christmas." Or we want to talk about what we want Christmas to feel like, and "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" just seems to sum it up. These songs can also wear on us after overplay in the mall, but sometimes it's good to just say the needs we have in simple language.It may be corny, but sometimes hoping for 'Santa' and love and peace is exactly what we're trying to say. "Corny" pretty much sums up my perception of this song by Burt Bacharach. I first encountered this song in the kitchy film Austin Powers, which is sticky-sweet nonsense from beginning to end. Then, I heard the song on a retro-weekend on the radio the other day, and suddenly recognized Advent: is there any more sweetly cloying and totally true to say during Advent than "what the world needs now, is love, sweet love? No, not just for some, but for everyone."
May favorite part of this song is when it kicks into high gear with the uptempo psychedelic guitars. It's saying, yeah, this wish is true, but we're gonna' have a little fun with it, too!This is helpful, because I often forget the power of having fun and keeping it simple when it comes to saying our needs during Advent. But fancy words don't beat the plaintive power of being straightforward... as any of us could tell you who've yelled along to a pop song about love or good times in the car. There's a certain virtue to corny. Isn't there something weirdly corny about our insistence on mangers and babies and fluffy lambs and stars on Christmas? This is the SON OF GOD we're talking about here, and we turn it into a story reenacted by eight year-olds. Yet as any of us know who've retold this corny story of God's birth among us, there's an incredible power in the simplicity and symbolism of the manger story, just as there's a majesty about John 1. My vote this year, as I say my needs and set out my hopes this first week of Advent is for BOTH: both the corny and the profound, the sweet and the bitter, the soothing night shadows and the bright light of a star. I choose Over the Rhine and Eliza Gilkyson who remind me of the yearning, aching, and profundity of this season. I also choose Burt Bacharach and Brenda Lee... and all the other corny songs that remind me that our hopes are simple and joyful and filled with hopefulness.
What corny hopes do you carry into this season, and how can you claim them without apologizing for their simplicity?
May you find the effervescence and delight of this season of Advent, the anticipation and the hopefulness, the playfulness that allows both our deepest and our most simple hopes to be named to God.
The angel said to the shepherds, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord." [And] suddenly a multitude of the heavenly host appeared with the angel praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace...!"
- Luke 2:10-14, adapted
Why is there so little joy in our churches around Christmas? Joy isn't the same thing as adoration and praise, although these are close sisters. It's also not the same as quiet inspiration, although this, too, is related. Joy is an attitude, not an action; it's about nearly irrepressible delight, amazement, wonder, or understanding. In a Christian context, joy is about connection with the divine story in a way that is radically moving, that literally shakes up our foundations and brings us to our feet - or to our knees.
Yes, I'm happy about pancakes on Christmas morning or opening presents, and delighted by family and calm feelings of peace. Or maybe some years I'm not - maybe Christmas is painful and awkward for me that year. But I believe that joy can break out for us all into any situation - even though it rarely does.
Trouble is, we can't just BE more joyful. The miracle of joy is that it can't be manufactured or forced - it is utterly authentic or it is nothing. All we can do is be open to it, be awake to the story of our faith and be convicted about its meaning in our lives. In the end, joy comes, unbidden, from the place where our deepest hopes and convictions meet resounding outside affirmation - like the angels appearing to frightened shepherds to put an emphatic exclamation point on God's promises of love and redemption.
Sister Rosetta Tharpe was one of the earliest rock n' roll musicians in the U.S., though she's rarely credited for it. She grew up on the preaching circuit with her mother learning to play guitar and never left the gospel spirit in which she was raised. What I appreciate so much about Sister Rosetta is her joyful, almost infectious delight when she sings and plays - she rolls back her eyes, sways, wails on the guitar and just generally invites us join her in a playful conspiracy of rejoicing:
Up above my head,
I hear music in the air,
Up above my head,
there is music in the air
Up above my head
I really do believe (I really do believe)
There's joy somewhere
All in my home,
there is music in the air...
What would it look like if we could catch the spirit of this kind of praise and delight -- this great joy -- more often in our lives, homes and communities? Maybe it would look like Sister Rosetta or maybe it would be quieter or more subtle, but either way it would be real, meaningful and - most important: visible.
This carries us back to the heart of Christian evangelism - which isn't some sickly, cloying Vote-For-Jesus campaign or mere self-aggradizing proselytizing, but which simply starts with the act of living of our lives as if this Christmas story mattered - as if it gave us genuine hope and real joy.
The Advent Music Project didn't feel like a complete project unless we followed the Christmas star all the way into the manger and to Epiphany. So this week, as Christmastide begins, we're thinking about Hoping Onward into the twelve days of Christmas, into a new calendar year, and beyond. So we ask ourselves: how do we hope onward and delve deeper into the story of Jesus' birth so that we don't just abandon him in the manger when the parties and food and gifts have ended?
One possibility of hoping onward might be to re-embrace the possibility of joy in our lives and Christian communities. We might remember and experience 'The Twelve Days of Christmas' this year as if there were some strange and wonderful music about to break out overhead, announcing good news of great joy. We might sing the songs as if they meant something, we might worship wholeheartedly and try to live -at least for a moment - as if we really mean it when we said that we believe that Emmanuel was born again this Christmas Day, inviting all Creation to join with us in the angels'playful conspiracy of rejoicing, as well.
'May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in the Lord, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.' - Romans 15:13
To inaugurate the next twelve days of Christmastide on the A.M. Project, enjoy the Christmas story in the voice of those who might know it best of all...
(Best watched full-screen, if possible)
May our hearts and lives be full this day, may we find peace, and may we keep in mind the wonderful inspiration that 'then there was a party!'
and such happiness in the coming year." -What Christmas Means to Me
Let's not forget the joy. During Advent there is a lot of ambiguity, a lot of facing of brokenness, hoping for the future, all of which AMP has pressed into for almost four weeks now. But lest we get stuck in that loop and forget, today let's give ourselves a little permission to live into the celebration. There is much to celebrate in this season. Now to be clear, I am not referring to the happiness of receiving that gift you really wanted, or the temporary truce, glad-to-be-good-right-now moments at some of our family gatherings, or even the warmth we extend to guests at the soup kitchen; these are wonderful moments but they can easily turn, becoming moments of disappointment, toppling into patterns of brokenness or passing into cold inconstancy. We observe moments as a doorway into a deeper and more abiding celebration.
In Advent and at Christmas, we REJOICE in the message of the babygod, whose birth was joyfully announced to the shepherds so long ago; the message of hope that the world will be redeemed, the message of grace that we are beloved by our creator. This is the ABIDING JOY to which we return each year, that it might be born in us anew as we peer into the manger.
This joy undergirds our season, runs through the hustle and bustle of our days and waits quietly in our moments of pain and longing. This joy peeks out at us from the usual places: candles burning low and singing sweet Silent Night as well as unexpected places like an impromptu conversation or a moment of stillness late at night. For me, rocking a sweet baby girl, sharing a meal cooked with love, laughing at my coworker's truly hilarious joke, all these things and more, are reminders to rejoice this season. These mostly small moments, and few big ones, point to the Love that holds the world in it's grasp, the peace that grow as Love connects us, and the hope of the promise that Love transforms us all. That's what Christmas means to me and that is worth celebrating.
As we draw close to Christmas, let us savor the moments of joy, big and small. Listen to Stevie, smile, dance a little, if you feel it. This is a season of joy, what does that mean to you?
"Do not be afraid, I bring you good news of great joy that shall be for all the people" -Luke 2:10
This post starts out sad, but, much like Advent, turns into Christmas: Advent didn't end softly in my world. Yesterday, Christmas Eve, I sat with a family whose otherwise healthy child became dangerously ill that same morning. So instead of the normal last-minute holiday wrapping, cooking, and planning, the family gathered at the hospital and tearfully kept vigil over the balance between life and death of a toddler. And I sat with them.
