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Advent
Season when dual citizenship
holds us in awkward tension.
The world, intent on
spending Christmas,
eats and drinks its way to
oblivion after dinner.
The Kingdom sounds
insistent warnings:
Repent, Be ready,
Keep awake, He comes.
Like some great fugue
the themes entwine:
the Christmas carols
demanding our attention
in shops and pubs,
bore their insistent way
through noise of traffic;
underneath, almost unheard,
the steady, solemn theme of
Advent.
With growing complexity,
clashing, blending,
rivals for our attention,
themes mingle and separate,
pulling us with increasing urgency,
until in final resolution,
the end attained,
harmony rests in aweful stillness,
and the child is born.
He comes, both child and Judge
And will he find us watching?
I wrote that after hearing a piece of music by Bach, Wachet auf, in which dancing music is undergirded by the solemn tune to which we sing the Advent hymn Sleepers wake, the watchcry soundeth.
The music helped me to reflect on the nature of the Advent season, when we are torn between serious preparation for the celebration of the birth of Christ, and the frenetic business of the Christmas rush.
The commercial world will tell us how many shopping days there are to Christmas.
The Church tells us how many praying days there are.
Advent is a god-send, encouraging us to stand back, observe, take time for prayer, not just in the sense of saying words, but by spending time in God's company, watching, waiting, listening. We can do that not only in times set aside, but in the midst of the busyness too.
Christians sometimes talk in a rather superior way about 'the real meaning of Christmas' as though it is divorced from what the rest of the world is engaged in But it was, and is, to the world of trade and commerce and human relationships that God came and comes.
Our shopping days and our praying days are the same days – our task is to meet the God who is with us in every part of our lives.
God came to the world, not just the church, and it is there that we have to make connections with his love.
Shopping may seem an unlikely context for prayer, but it holds many possibilities: awareness of the source of goods, and the exploitation which is sometimes involved in their production can give us starting points for saying 'Thank God' or 'Lord, have mercy'.
Looking at the contents of the shopping trolleys around us, and using our imagination about the lives of those pushing them can lead us to lift them to God.
Practising stillness of mind and heart, perhaps by repeating a verse of a psalm instead of getting agitated if the queue is long can help to spread goodwill, and may help us to give a word of encouragement to the till operator when we get there, instead of expressing our irritation.
Writing the cards, choosing the presents, inviting guests, can all be prayerful activities, expressions of God's love, not just our own.
It's our attitude of mind and heart that prepares us for Christmas, not simply completing the list of things to be done.