Advent is about remembering the past coming of the Christ Child and eagerly anticipating the definitive coming into the world of this victorious Messiah. This ruler, promised to return, will come to judge the world – to separate between what is wheat and what is chaff, what is temporary, easily carried off with the flightiness of the wind, and what is solid, balanced, crucial, immovable. It’s not just a prophetic word that points to a setting or settling of the world, like cement driving once its laid. It’s about the world becoming truly real, the removal of what is delusionary, destructive and divisive.
The Word was first,
the Word present to God,
God present to the Word.
The Word was God,
in readiness for God from day one.
Everything was created through him;
nothing—not one thing!—
came into being without him.
What came into existence was Life,
and the Life was Light to live by.
The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness;
the darkness couldn’t put it out.
John 1:1-5 (The Message)
In Christian Theology this Messiah – Jesus of Nazareth – is understood as the living Word of God. In the first chapter of the book of John, the writer, playing with the creation retelling found in Genesis 1 and 2, gives flesh to this metaphor. If God creates by speaking a word, by giving a word, than the essence of creation is a dialogue. Life is understood as a conversation, not just one word, but a word which once spoken, evokes a response, participation and in turn creates new words and new life. If Christmas is the holiday of remembering the arrival of this initializing word, then Advent is the time of preparation before – much like the thunderous anticipation before the symphony begins to play, the excitement in awaiting a loved one arriving at the airport, or the ecstatic joy bursting froth from the first intelligible words spoken by a baby. Such listening and waiting requires quiet, silence, rest, stillness. These are the elements that seem to most lack in our culture and society today. We’re plugged in, stressed out and always accessible. Our opinions are posted, liked, followed and proclaimed. Those we disagree with we avoid, ghettoize and demonize. Is it any wonder then, that many of us feel so alienated, alone, hungry for an exchange, dialogue and sense of community?
One of my favorite Christmas Carols, “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” wrestles with the darkness that we easily see in our world, the division that seems to outshine the unity, community and conversation that work towards peace – not just the absence of war, division or fighting, but the full presence of wholeness, togetherness and the Divine.
The Casting Crowns recorded a nice version
Here are the lyrics to the
not-sung-enough carol:
I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
I thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along the unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
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, good will to men.”
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.”
Till, ringing singing, on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime, a chant sublime,
Of peace on earth, good will to men!