Advent 1 ~ Hope

 

We are holding the words of the Carol, “Awake! Awake and greet the new morn” this week.  I invite you to focus with me on the fourth verse today.  Read this verse aloud three times please.

 

First, in a normal voice.  What words or images do you notice?

Second, in a soft stage whisper, so only your own soul can hear.  What words or images did this way of reading awaken and arise within you?

Third, sing out the words as a prayer for these Advent days.

 

Rejoice, rejoice, take heart in the night, though cold the winter and cheerless,

The rising sun shall crown you with light, be strong, and loving and fearless.

Love be our song and love our prayer, and love, our endless story.

May God fill every day we share, and bring us at last into glory. 

 

What I love about this fourth verse is the words point to the paradox of Christmas.  The fear, anger, frustration, and unsettledness chills the air around us…there is a cheerless-ness that describes and defines so many of our lives.  And we are preparing to live our lives transformed by the birth of a vulnerable, weak, baby born in the working-class section of Bethlehem to two parents who didn’t rate or rank on any of the top 100 lists of the day.  What is weak is strong.  What is lowly is God-ly.  What is least is what we seek.  While we can nod our heads to this, honestly, we struggle to live this.  Hope, peace, love, and joy light the way to the stable, but those candles can feel quickly extinguished the second we exit the church doors.  We may sing out Carols beautifully proclaiming and preaching God’s way, only to go our own way by Sunday afternoon.  We do this partly because each of us has an internal scoreboard keeping track of why the world is broken and bruised and even perhaps beyond redemption.  The evidence is right there on our cell phone dinging with constant notifications least we are tempted to think any differently ~ let alone consider living differently! 

 

And yet…yet…yet..

These words:

 

Love be our song…and love our prayer…and love our endless story.

 

Hold those words pondering what would it mean during December to live those words?  May that question awaken your thoughts, warm your heart, and stir your soul as we let God’s gift of hope ~ a gift given every day to you and me ~ rearrange the furniture of our lives this day and every day between now and Christmas Eve.  Amen.